Hart sells $300m of CHH properties

KIWI billionaire Graeme Hart has sold properties owned by his Carter Holt Harvey forestry and packaging group for more than $300 million.

The sale, announced yesterday, includes the 8.5-hectare site containing CHH's head office in Manukau City, which fetched about $40 million and is set to be redeveloped -- possibly as an industrial park, though no firm plans have been made yet.

The CHH head office site enjoyed some fame years back when it contained a nine-hole golf course used by CHH executives. The course is now long gone.

CHH will move out of the offices in a few months and into other premises in Te Papapa, Auckland.

Mr Hart has also offloaded 15 Carters building supplies depots, five packaging plants in Australia, five New Zealand packaging plants and four other development sites in New Zealand.

The buyer of all the properties is Australia's Valad Property Group. The packaging plants and building depots are being leased back by CHH.

Mr Hart's main investment company, Rank Group, had no comment on the transaction yesterday.

But Valad said the deal represented a unique opportunity to secure a significant industrial portfolio in two national markets that continued to show steady and consistent growth.

The Carters sites sold are in Northland, Auckland, Gisborne, Hawke's Bay, Wanganui, Wellington, Christchurch and Invercargill.

The New Zealand-based packaging plants are all in the North Island, at Levin, Woodville, Manukau, Penrose and Mangere.

Carter Holt Harvey was bought by Rank Group last year after a $3.3 billion takeover offer. Mr Hart wasted no time putting his mark on the company, paring head office numbers before selling the company's forestry estate for around $1.6 billion.

He has since spent a further $4.5 billion, which has included buying a mill and substantial packaging assets in the United States as well as Swiss company SIG.

Rank and Mr Hart are the world's No 2 in drinks packaging, with about a 15 per cent share.
Source: lexisnexis