WELLINGTON - The country's biggest apple orchardist, Hawkes Bay-based Eastern Equities, says it has sold all its apple orchards and related horticultural assets.
The sale, to a company registered only on June 13, Hawkes Bay Apples, with a registered office at Timaru, comes only a month after the national pipfruit marketer,
Enza, appointed Eastern Equities' founder and chairman, Peter Roebuck, to its own board.
Under Mr Roebuck, Eastern Equities was a big supporter of Enza and this season exported only through the former Apple and Pear Marketing Board system.
Eastern Equities' packhouse generated 1.5 million export cartons last season. A little over half the fruit was from its own orchards.
Accountant John Stark, of Timaru, who is listed as a director of the new company, said the orchards that produced the apples were now owned by "a group of New Zealand investors who are committed to the future prosperity of the apple industry."
Allen Hubbard, another member of his accountancy firm, Hubbard Churcher & Co, is also a director of the new company.
Mr Stark said transfer of the orchards and other assets would take effect on October 31.
As a condition of the sale, all existing staff would have continuity of employment.
Eastern Equities was formerly a public company listed on the Stock Exchange.
In October 1999, it was delisted in a management buyout by Mr Roebuck and chief executive Murray Boyt, who linked with AMP Asset Management to offer 70c a share for up to 90 per cent of the shares.
- NZPA
