The international port investment arm of Hutchison Whampoa yesterday bid for its first stake in New Zealand's container market by offering $558.8 million for a minority stake in the managing company at the port of Lyttelton on the country's South Island.
Hutchison Port Holdings agreed to buy 49 per cent of Lyttelton Port from its majority shareholder, Christchurch City Holdings, pending regulatory and shareholder approval.
Hutchison will pay NZ$2.10 ($11.06) each for 19.42 million shares, a 13.8 per cent premium on their average trading price over the past six months.
The deal is also pending Christchurch City's purchase of all the voting shares in the managing company it does not have under its 69 per cent equity stake.
Lyttelton is a small port on the outskirts of the South Island's main city of Christchurch. Most of its revenue comes from one container berth, through which it moved about 177,000 boxes in the financial year to June.
It supplements that revenue with coal and dry-bulk businesses but its infrastructure will need upgrading to compete with other ports in the region.
'We expect maintenance costs to remain at a high level for the next two to three years,' the management company's chairman Barney Sundstrum said in August.
