A large Chinese company, Shenzhen Kondarl, has told the Shenzhen stock exchange it is close to finalising the purchase of Australia’s biggest avocado farm for as much as a billion Chinese yuan ($192 million).
But Neil Delroy, the Australian owner of Jasper Farms at Busselton, Western Australia, told The Australian yesterday that no deal had been done.
He confirmed his two highly productive avocado farms were being offered to both overseas and local investors by Ernst & Young — who last year sold the Kidman cattle empire for $380 million to a Gina Rinehart-Shanghai CRED joint venture — but said he was mystified by Shenzhen Kondarl’s purchase announcement.
It is thought the premature Shenzhen Kondarl announcement may have been made to signal to its investors that it had obtained permission from Chinese authorities to spend a billion yuan buying an asset or business outside China.
source: theaustralian.com.au
