Te Arawa Federation of Maori Authorities deputy chairman Te Taru White said the group had decided to withdraw from any future investigation into the purchase of the former Tachikawa mill operation.
"We have gone through all of the receiver's memorandums, invited some key industry experts around the table to help us in this process, people who knew the machinery and installed it, the bankers involved and those suppliers who had worked with Tachikawa for more than 20 years.
"After looking at all of this we were given a figure of more than $25 million to get it back to a satisfactory level of operation.
"Factors such as the exchange rate and heavy competition with places like Chile were also considered and from a business perspective we concluded it had zero value.
"We also looked at the land and the opportunity to return it to Te Arawa ownership."
Mr White said the group had always been mindful of the workers who lost their jobs.
"This started out as duty of care to those 129 workers, but the reality is it would cost far too much so we had to call it a day.
"We did tour the site and we are rather sad not to be able to do anything with it, especially when we think about those workers there," Mr White said.
