By PHILIPPA STEVENSON
Iconic New Zealand ice-cream brand Tip Top has come home following Kiwi Dairies' successful takeover of Australian dairy foods company Peters and Brownes.
Kiwi said yesterday that it had completed an agreement for just over 50 per cent of the $550 million Perth company.
It expected to raise the shareholding
to 75 per cent once negotiations were completed with a partner in the firm, Gad Raveh.
Another partner, managing director Graham Laitt, would remain as a minority shareholder.
Kiwi said the addition of Peters and Brownes would boost its turnover to $3.5 billion.
When combined with its domestic foods company Mainland, the deal would create a $1.3 billion transtasman consumer goods firm that would be New Zealand's biggest, Kiwi said.
Peters and Brownes owns the Australia and New Zealand licence rights to the Cadbury brand of ice cream.
It bought the Mt Wellington-based Tip Top company from Heinz Wattie's in 1996.
