OIO concerns justified over ANZ rejected bid, journalist says

Friday, 22 December 2017

A business journalist based in China says there are major unanswered questions about the Chinere firm whose bid to buy UDC Finance has been rejected.

There are major unanswered questions about the Chinese firm whose bid to buy UDC Finance has been rejected, a China-based business journalist says.

ANZ announced plans in January to sell its asset finance business UDC Finance for $660 million to the Chinese conglomerate HNA, a Fortune Global 500 company.

The Overseas Investment Office (OIO) has turned down an application because it could not determine who the 'relevant overseas person' intending to make the purchase was from the information provided.

In July, now-deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters spoke out against the deal, saying the OIO should reject it.

The Asian editor of the Financial Times, Jamil Anderlini, told RNZ ownership of the firm was murky, and had also raised concerns for the Chinese government.

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Anderlini said HNA was a large company with assets over US$1 billion and held a big chunk of its shares under a charitable organisation.

'There are huge questions in China and all around the world about who really owns this and there have been suggestions from some quarters that senior Chinese Government officials and their families are ultimately large hidden shareholders in this family.'

He said it seems justified that the NZ OIO are raising these concerns.

'A large amount of shares have been passed through the hands of several people who seem to be not involved in the management of the company in any way.'

In July, now-deputy Prime Minister Winston Peters spoke out against the deal, saying the OIO should reject it.

'HNA Group is less a House of Cards and more a 'House of Renminbi,' Peters said then.

Citing a Bloomberg story, he said: 'It may be a case of rearranging the deckchairs on this corporate Titanic, but we now know it is majority owned by two charities, one on the Island on Hainan and the other, bizarrely enough, in New York.

'And who was listed as HNA's single largest shareholder with 29 per cent of the company, the mysterious Guan Jun, has now been revealed as a front for HNA's Executives. This company is convoluted, enigmatic and so indebted, that the OIO must pull the plug,' Peters said in July.