After His Cattle & Cucumber Investments Went Pear Shaped, Gerry Harvey Is Now Punting On Lime & Cement
Alas, Gerry Harvey has a new investment plan after his cucumber for kids was put in the too hard basket.
This time round the Chairman of retail group Harvey Norman, is tipping some of his $3.4 billion in wealth, into lime and cement via ASX-listed, Mayur Resources the Papua New Guinea mining group.
It was only a few years ago that he was planning to control the global tzatziki trade via his Peats Ridge investment and Family Fresh Farms.
This went south after his mate and farm facility manager Andrew Young a former director of appliance brand Kleenmaid was sentenced to a stretch in the slammer after being found guilty of insolvent trading and of defrauding Westpac of $13 million by dishonestly gaining a loan.
Harvey, who has several investments in property and agriculture, spent $3 million increasing his shareholding in Mayur to 6.7% last week according to the AFR.
Gerry Harvey at the 2020 Magic Millions barrier draw at Surfers Paradise Foreshore on the Gold Coast, Tuesday, January 7, 2020. (AAP Image/Glenn Hunt) NO ARCHIVING
The purchase was made through Harvey’s investment vehicle, Velrosso.
Apparently, the business will extract lime for use in the building, industrial and mining sectors.
The mine is based on the coast north-west of Port Moresby, the project includes a quarry and wharf.
Mayur executive chairman Richard Pegum said, “We’re building a quicklime factory, and 55 per cent of Australia’s quicklime is imported,”.
“We have the capacity, we have the assets, we have the wharf, and we will have the factory all within 700 metres of each other. Nowhere in the world does that occur. The synergies and the cost benefits are obvious”.
He also has Gerry Harvey who has a questionable track record outside of retailing.
As for the Peats Ridge investment and his plan to grow cucumbers, Harvey paid $5 million for the Peats Ridge site in May 2013.
Local rumours were that he initially planned to harvest medicinal marijuana but when the licensing didn’t work out, he turned to cucumbers instead, spending $20 million building a new facility, which opened in 2017, that lasted until 2020.
Along the way, Harvey also coughed up $15,000 in fines to the New South Wales Environmental Protection Authority, after a site visit in May of that year uncovered it burning woodchips to heat its greenhouses before it had secured the necessary licences.
In another questionable investment his investment in a Victorian dairy farm also went pear shaped a move that at the time was set to cost Harvey Norman investors $60 million.
This investment in dairy farm and cattle breeding business Coomboona Holdings, got into trouble when the National Bank appointed receivers and managers to protect its position after Coomboona directors including Mr Harvey appointed administrators.
Back in 2018 Gerry Harvey had outlaid $34 million for a 49.9 per cent stake in Coomboona in September 2015, angering investors by buying the stake through a Harvey Norman subsidiary, HNM Galaxy, rather than one of his private companies.
