Nippon Paper Industries Co Ltd, a Japan-based paper manufacturing company has acquired through local subsidiaries the paper business of Orora Limited, a manufacturer of packaging and cardboard products.
The AUD $1.72 billion acquisition which has was approved by the ACCC and the FIRB in March includes several NSW land holdings including the Botany Paper Mill at 1891 Botany Rd, Matraville and 168 Milperra Rd, Revesby. Records indicated these transactions to be worth approximately $238M.
The sale includes the 13.4ha site at Matraville along with the adjoining 1.2ha Purcell Park which is zoned Public Recreation. The company leases the park to Randwick Council as open space.
The Botany Rd site is one of the key manufacturing sites for Australian Paper and follows an investment of some $500m on the site in 2013 for the development of a new 400,000t per annum facility specifically designed to minimise environmental impact such as noise, odour and water discharges and generate savings in power and water. The business had planned to sell its 16ha Fairfield site and half of the 20ha Botany site to fund construction of the new paper mill. The company withdrew the sale from the market in 2011 because of poor real estate prices.
On a proportional land area basis, the Matraville site is likely to have traded for $175m.
The 5ha site at Revesby is a secondary workshop and warehouse for its fibre packaging business and is likely to have traded for $65m.
I expect Nippon Paper will consider a long term sale and leaseback of these premises in due course.
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