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Shareholders of Silver Fern Farms have voted in favour of a proposal to sell 50 percent of New Zealand’s biggest meat company to Shanghai Maling Aquarius after the unit of China’s state-owned Bright Food Group offered $261 million of cash, a special dividend and money to bankroll the cooperative for seven years. Some 82.2 percent of votes were cast in favour of the transaction, …

Lisa Owen: Well, it reportedly came down to the wire, but after years of negotiations and a few dead rats, the Trans-Pacific Partnership was finally agreed this week in Atlanta. But the full text is still weeks away, and the only detail we have now is Government-released fact sheets. It’s trumpeting the 260 million we’ll save in duty and tariffs, …

It is common thought that the nature of work is changing, as technologies and social behaviour evolve. One aspect of this which has caused concern for some is that of casualisation. We see widespread commentary on the increasing proportion of lower paid jobs which are part time, casual, or even “zero hours” contracts. For those who are running businesses this …

New Zealand will still be able to make its foreign investment rules “more restrictive” under the Trans-Pacific Partnership, according to a Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade guidance note, opening up a way for the Labour Party to support the controversial trade and investment pact that it feared would breach the one of its five “bottom lines” relating to foreign …

Silver Fern Farms could be kept in cooperative ownership for as little as $25,000 per farmer and the meat company’s board would be irresponsible not to consider a “plan B” if it fails to garner support for its proposal to sell half the business to Shanghai Maling Aquarius, says an opponent of the deal. SFF shareholder John Cochrane this week circulated an …

AFT Pharmaceuticals, the Auckland-based drugs developer and reseller, wants to list in Australia and New Zealand, raising funds to speed up the development of products to sell in other countries. The company is considering an initial public offering on the NZX and ASX, hiring First NZ Capital as sole lead manager, it said in a statement, without indicating how much money it …

New Zealand manuka honey producers are seeking the same trademark protection accorded to French Champagne and Scottish Whisky after a surge in fakes that aren’t made from the nectar of Leptospermum Scoparium, the native manuka bush. The UMF Honey Association is seeking to protect the use of the name because imitations are damaging the brand at a time when demand in markets such …

Science and Innovation Minister Steven Joyce is happy with the close association the country”s seven Crown Research Institute have with their specific industries, even as their funding comes under review in the National Statement on Science Investment. Joyce launched the national policy on how the government plans to invest in science, research and development this week, unveiling a raft of …

Scott Technology, the industrial automation manufacturer, more than doubled annual profit as revenue was boosted by a weaker kiwi dollar and gains from its RobotWorx acquisition. Profit rose to $6.1 million in the 12 months ended Aug. 31 from $3 million a year earlier, the Dunedin-based firm said in a statement. Sales rose 20 percent to $72.3 million. Profit was boosted by a …

The New Zealand Superannuation Fund is actively seeking new domestic investment opportunities where it believes it has “hometown advantages” but chief executive Adrian Orr said they’re difficult to find at the scale it needs. The NZ Super Fund’s 2014/2015 report released today shows it had $4.4 billion of its $29.54 billion portfolio invested in New Zealand compared to $3.7 billion a year …