Bitter harvest
| Published date | 27 August 2021 |
| Publication title | New Zealand Herald, The (Auckland, New Zealand) |
But China’s problem, said Global Horticulture’s backers, was the opportunity.
Authorities in Xi’an, an ancient city in Shaanxi province, China’s largest kiwifruit region, were so impressed by New Zealand’s growing technology, they were willing to let the company in.
A video to promote the company as part of the 2011 Deloitte Fast50 competition showed Regan Wood, an entrepreneur who had become a director and shareholder in Global Horticulture, excitedly talking about its potential.
“We were invited in, saying ‘help us, we’ve been growing kiwifruit for a very long time and you people took it and commercialised it, and did a very good job of it’,” Wood said.
“‘So help us commercialise it, because we need a transfer of wealth to our farmers, we need to feed our people’,” Wood added, gushing about the monumental opportunity if the company could one day sell just half a piece of fruit to each Chinese person a week.
Before joining Global Horticulture, Wood and a business partner built up a retail chain, the Sunglass Store, which was sold to international eyeware giant Luxottica in 2004. He is now chief executive of the Auckland Tuatara baseball team. He is not the only person associated with the company with a public profile, at least within business circles.
A decade after the video was shot and 17 years since the company was formed, Global Horticulture caught the attention of the Takeovers Panel, the Crown entity that monitors New Zealand’s takeovers market.
In a short statement on July 23, the panel announced that it was holding a “section 32” meeting looking at changes in voting control as a result of events in 2014 and 2016.
Such meetings are held to assess whether a person, or people — in this case not named — has breached the provisions of the Takeovers Act.
The Panel has since quietly announced that it has discontinued the inquiry after the complainant withdrew the request. “Accordingly, the Panel has decided to discontinue the section 32 meeting and has not made any determination in respect of the matters that were to be considered.”
The Herald has been following a dispute at the company since early 2020, with directors conceding that they believe they were deceived about what the business was doing in China, leading to major losses for investors who were mainly their friends and family. Many of the investors are respected figures in Wellington investment and banking circles.
A lawyer for the directors of the company put the losses for the largest shareholder in the “tens of millions of dollars”.
Although more than one investor is deeply frustrated at Global Horticulture’s performance, several have characterised the dispute as an episode in what they describe as a bitter divorce battle.
GRAND PLANS
COME UNSTUCK
Global Horticulture was set up in November 2004 by Patrick Watene, a former Zespri employee.
Initially based in Tauranga, Watene was for several months the sole owner.
According to media reports, part of Watene’s role with Zespri was to arrange visits for delegations to and from China. After being asked to provide an assessment of the Chinese industry and after delivering a difficult message, he was asked to help professionalise the industry.
“The Chinese sort of said to him ‘our industry’s in a bit of a shambles, we’ve got tonnes of it but we don’t do it anywhere near as well as you guys do; do you want to come and have a look at seeing what you could do to help us out?’” Craig Johnson, a Global Horticulture director, told the Herald in 2012.
Johnson joined the company several months after it was formed...
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