Canadian pension fund buys NZ farm
The sale of a Canterbury dairy farm for more than $17 million to a pension company owned by the Canadian government has been approved by the Overseas Investment Office (OIO).
OIO approval was given in November for the purchase in the latest round of decisions for overseas investment of sensitive land.
The transaction includes a medium-sized farm of 335 hectares and a neighbouring support block of 72ha, also on freehold land at Hororata. They will be combined to create a larger dairy farm.
Applying for OIO consent was Ramsay Dairy Farm Ltd, wholly owned by Canada’s Public Sector Pension Investment (PSP) Board.
The land was sold by Harry and Gail Schat, owners of Haglea Farm Ltd, and Jennifer, Neal and Mervyn Todd under Ddot Holdings Ltd.
Harry Schat was previously North Canterbury president of Federated Farmers for three years.
Ramsay Dairy Farm Ltd has plans to convert some of the dairy support land to create a larger milking platform, and to increase the herd size by about 400 cows.
In its decision the OIO said the benefits included the creation of additional jobs, an increase in milk volumes being processed in New Zealand, increased export receipts, and the introduction of capital investment to convert dairy support land to dairying.
In order to meet OIO criteria, the new owners pledged to increase the size of the milking operation on the farm, mostly by investing in irrigation infrastructure and increasing its herd size.
The investment board is one of Canada’s biggest fund managers handling the investments of public servants, the Mounties and the military. Last September PSP had CAN$139.2 billion of assets under its management.
Canadian investors were shown in a KPMG report to be the biggest foreign investors in New Zealand in 2014, with 22 per cent of total investment.