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A conditional agreement has been reached to buy Turoa skifield out of the Ruapehu Alpine Lifts insolvency, but the front runner for its sister field has backed away from the process.
Pure Tūroa, headed by Ohakune entrepreneur Greg Hickman and Taupō business partner Cam Robertson, signed the sale and purchase agreement late this week, saying it meant it could “get a lot more work done in ensuring Tūroa is the best it can be for winter 2024.”
Pure Tūroa will likely purchase the assets for $1 with the Crown taking a quarter stake in the business, but the deal is still dependent on securing a concession to operate within the Tongariro National Park from the Department of Conservation.
The buyer expects it will find out the outcome of the concessions process in March and if approved the deal will go ahead with a $3.05m loan from MBIE to help with capital demands.
March is also when the current tranche of government funding to keep the fields operating runs out.
Securing concessions might be a tall order.
Local iwi and hapū who are required to be meaningfully consulted by the Department of Conservation have come out strongly against the sales process and the prospect of the fields being privatised, saying the whole ordeal prejudges the outcome of the overdue Tongariro National Park Treaty settlement.
A concession application was filed by Pure Tūroa in early December and public submissions close on February 9.
While MBIE’s appointed receivers have inked an agreement with Pure Tūroa, Whakapapa Holdings, the Crown’s preferred buyer for the Whakapapa ski field on the north side of the mountain, has now backed away from buying the field.
Whakapapa Holdings was fronted by local industry veteran Dave Mazey – the ski field boss who previously merged the two fields when Turoa was last in administration and financed by the South Island Office, an investment group led by another ski industry veteran Tom Elworthy,
Mazey told Newsroom the group was no longer interested and had removed itself from the process just before Christmas.
He said ski fields were complex businesses that were always risky or volatile investments, and the South Island Office had decided there were better opportunities elsewhere.
Mazey said he understood another option was being considered for Whakapapa, but it wasn’t something he was privy to.
Ruapehu Alpine Lifts liquidator John Fisk directed all questions to the receivers, who didn’t respond in time for publication.
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