The sale of the 16 North Island farms formerly owned by companies linked to the Crafar family has been completed and Chinese company Shanghai Pengxin is now the new owner.
Purchased under the name of a subsidiary company, Pengxin New Zealand Farm Group, the properties will be jointly managed with the government-owned company Landcorp.
Shanghai Pengxin says it intends to use production from the farms - most of them dairy farms - to create a range of consumer products for marketing in China.
The farms covering nearly 8000 hectares currently carry about 16,000 cows.
