30 Jan 2013

Wool promotion body extends capital raising deadline

8:33 am on 30 January 2013

Wools of New Zealand is still well short of its target of signing up 2000 grower shareholders but its chair is confident the company will reach its capital raising threshold in four weeks.

The farmer-owned wool promotion company extended its share offer to wool growers to 25 February after falling short of the minimum $5 million by the first deadline in December.

The offer aims to raise $10 million and 20 million kilograms of wool from growers to pursue the Wools of New Zealand international marketing and sales strategies.

Chairman Mark Shadbolt says that so far $4.2 million has been raised from 560 growers, much lower than the target.

"We're probably going to start with a smaller group of growers but a bigger volume of wool, so I'd like to think that by the closing date we'll be well beyond 15 million kilos."

Mr Shadbolt says there are signs of a renewed interest in wool which is reflected in the recent s light lift in its price.