NZ Global sale looms after liquidationGREG NINNESS05:00, Jun 05 2011
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Overseas buyers are lining up to take control of one of the largest online exporters of NZ-made consumer goods after the company was tipped into liquidation.
New Zealand Global Ltd, which sells a wide range of locally made products to consumers around the world via its shopnewzealand.co.nz website, has been put on the market by liquidator Gareth Hoole of Staples Rodway, who said he hoped to have a sale finalised as early as this week.
Hoole said a number of potential buyers had shown interest in the business and most were based in China or Malaysia.
The company has had a rocky trading history over the past 12 months. It has been in and out of voluntary administration and receivership in controversial circumstances, as minority shareholders battled the company's former majority shareholder and managing director Chris Berryman for control of the business.
This followed a decision by Berryman to sell the lucrative infant formula and honey part of the business to a company which, minority shareholders alleged, he already had a relationship with. Berryman denied the allegation.
NZ Global was subsequently placed into voluntary administration in October last year, and into receivership a few days later. But that arrangement was also short-lived and the company came out of receivership and back into voluntary administration in November.
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Advertise with StuffHoole, who acted as the administrator and has continued as liquidator, said the company had traded satisfactorily until Christmas but was badly affected by the recent earthquakes in Christchurch and Japan.
The February earthquake in Christchurch had made it difficult to source some popular products, and after the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan, orders from that country – which contributed about 40% of sales, had been badly affected.
The company urgently needed additional capital, but the bad blood between Berryman and minority shareholders made that impossible. Berryman was not prepared to provide additional capital and the other shareholders were not prepared to put in more money while he remained a shareholder, so the company was tipped into liquidation when it could not meet commitments as they fell due, Hoole said.
The company's intellectual property, such as the internet trading software programmes it had developed, were the main drawcards for potential buyers, Hoole said.
The liquidators' report said they would also be investigating whether any transactions in the second half of last year could be held voidable. However, the first priority was to finalise a sale of the business, Hoole said.
Sunday Star Times
