NZ Premium Whitebait sold for $1m by receivers

New Zealand Premium Whitebait, the country’s only commercial whitebait farm, has been sold by receivers to its creditor and shareholder, the commercial investment arm of the Ngati Tahu-Ngati Whaoa tribe, for $1.095 million.

Receivers Ecovis KGA sold the whitebait business to Tahu Whaoa Group Holdings for the value of the group’s $927,500 debt and a cash payment of $167,500 on May 15, some six weeks after their appointment by the group on April 5, it said in its final report.

Tahu Whaoa tipped the company into receivership after the whitebait farming venture was unable to service its loan as the lack of cash coming in weighed against the significant outflows and working capital requirements, the receivers said.

Attempts to sell the business to other potential purchasers failed, and the company’s major shareholders declined to invest further funds through an acquisition, the receivers said.

The company’s assets at the time of the receivership included $474 of cash and equivalents, $146,000 in inventory of brood stock and consumables, and $2.318 million of plant and equipment. The brood stock was kept alive and operations maintained during the receivership, the report said.

Distributions from the receivership to preferential creditors such as the Inland Revenue Department totalled $167,500 but there were no funds available for distribution to unsecured creditors, the report said.

The receivers were paid $44,107 in fees. The report listed $180,073 owing to unsecured creditors such as trade creditors, landlords and utilities.