“It has put our farming company at risk, we have gone into overdraft at interest rates of 10%. We have not been able to put on the usual amount of fertiliser and are going into winter short of feed.”
He said they were forced to quit weaners and in-lamb ewes this month in order to generate some cash for winter.
“We have never had to sell in-lamb ewes before.”
Hawke’s Bay farm business trustee Andrew Field is listed as one of the plaintiffs who sought the Waimarie liquidation. The farm he is a trustee on is owed almost $100,000 relating to stock sales to Waimarie Meats, dating back over six months.
“We have only had silence from Waimarie since then. I believe they have been on the market for over a year and if I had known this, I would not have done business with them.”
For both farmers the company’s failure contains memories of the failure of the Weddel company in 1994. Both had stock caught up in that company’s sudden collapse.
Field estimates there may be as much as another $200,000 owed to farmers.
He urged the liquidators to look hard at the timing of key decisions made by the company, including when it was put on the market, and when directors were aware of their inability to meet livestock payments while continuing to operate.
“I had a verbal undertaking in December from director Terry Lester that I would be paid that had no basis in fact.”
A Property Brokers video on YouTube dated late November last year profiles the Waimarie Meats company for sale by tender through local agent Gil Button. The plant is advertised as an unsurpassed opportunity to purchase a world-class meat processing plant in a commercially nimble operation.
The plant employed 45 process workers and could process 180 beef carcasses a day.
Button referred Farmers Weekly to company directors Murray Owles of Parua Bay, Northland and Bryan Terry Lester of New Plymouth.
Lester said he would rather not comment on the liquidation until a full liquidators’ report was released.
The Ministry of Business, Innovation, and Employment’s Insolvency and Trustee Service confirmed with Farmers Weekly that the first liquidator’s report will be available on July 9.
Estimates are there could be at least a dozen farmers affected by the Waimarie liquidation, but the impact had also hit rural transport operators.
Bruce Stephenson of Stephenson Transport in Waipawa said they were owed $62,000 dating back to last spring, with little hope of seeing payment as unsecured creditors.
The first he knew of the liquidation was from Farmers Weekly, but he said the outcome was not surprising.
“In this game you take what you can get when jobs come along. I did chase them up for payment, but it had been to no avail.”
Craig Nelson of CR Nelson Transport in Masterton said he was owed between $21,000 and $25,000, and counted himself lucky – though he knew there was little chance he would see it again.
He said he started to get concerned when he had not received payment for transport services to the company last December, and also learnt the company was up for sale.
Nigel Castles of Dannevirke Carriers said he was also one of the luckier ones, being owed between $6000 and $10,000.
“This is the worst case we have seen in the industry as far as processors going broke for some time,” he said.
Story: Farmers Weekly
