SFF investor still willing

Silver Fern Farms has rejected a report from Australian media that Shanghai Maling Aquarius is believed to have walked away from a deal to buy the meat cooperative.

The Chinese company, a unit of China’s Bright Food, agreed last year to buy half of the meat processor for $261 million. SFF was described last September by independent advisors Grant Samuel as being close to liquidation.

The Australian’s Dataroom, citing unnamed sources, said Bright may now be looking at Australian companies Brownes Dairy, Murray Goulburn and Bega.

The SFF deal was waiting on Overseas Investment Office clearance, needed by June 30 for the transaction to proceed.

Last week Silver Fern Farms said that the OIO had requested more information on the deal, and the parties ‘‘are in the process of agreeing an extension to the 30 June 2016 date to meet the OIO approval condition’’.

Chief executive Dean Hamilton said the company continued to believe the agreement would achieve OIO approval.

As a consequence, the July 11 special meeting called by disaffected shareholders has been deferred and a new date will be set to allow the notice of meeting to be updated and distributed to shareholders with adequate time to review.

A Silver Fern Farms spokesman said Shanghai Maling would not be agreeing to an extension if it was walking away from the deal. It had also provided information to the Shanghai Stock Exchange, confirming what SFF had said. In May a report from The Australian had also claimed Fonterra CEO Theo Spierings was planning to leave, but it was quashed.