Comvita clears its $25 million rights offer with Fraser and Neave taking a 19.99 percent strategic stake
Comvita has formally closed its pro rata renounceable rights offer today, having cleared the $25 million minimum threshold needed to unlock a refinancing package and put one of New Zealand’s best known consumer exporters back on stable ground. The company confirmed to the NZX earlier this week that valid and irrevocable acceptances reached approximately $13.2 million by the close of business on 6 May, equal to a 44 percent shareholder take up and well above the 36 percent participation floor required for the deal to proceed.
The rest of the raise is being underwritten by F&N Ventures, the corporate investment arm of Singapore listed Fraser and Neave. F&N will end up with a 19.99 percent stake in Comvita once new shares are allotted, sitting just under the 20 percent threshold that would have triggered a full takeover offer under New Zealand’s takeovers code. That structure was deliberate. It allows Fraser and Neave to anchor the raise and bring its Asian distribution muscle to the table without forcing every other shareholder to consider an exit.
The new shares are being issued at 65 cents each, a price that looked generous a few months ago and now looks closer to a discount. Comvita stock had traded as low as 50.5 cents during the dialogue with lenders late last year, after a failed 80 cent takeover attempt by Christchurch backed Florenz in November 2025 collapsed without a binding bid. The board chose to recapitalise with existing shareholders and a single strategic partner rather than push for another bidding contest from a position of obvious weakness.
The cash is going almost entirely into the balance sheet. Comvita will use most of the proceeds to repay drawn bank debt, and as part of the same package its lending syndicate has agreed to a roughly two and a half year core facility of up to $24.8 million plus a $20 million working capital line. That removes the rolling six month covenant waivers and short term extensions that had been keeping the company alive since December, and gives management a runway long enough to actually execute a turnaround.
The turnaround is needed. Comvita reported a $104.8 million loss for the year to 30 June 2025, up sharply from the $77.4 million loss it booked the previous year. The damage came from a global oversupply of mānuka honey, aggressive discounting by smaller producers, accounting irregularities disclosed in late 2024, and a softer Chinese consumer that had been the company’s biggest growth engine for most of the previous decade. The board moved on its previous chief executive, brought in Karl Gradon, and started shutting down unprofitable retail and wholesale lines.
There are early signs that the strategy is working. The company has told investors that Lunar New Year trading in February and March 2026 was strong, particularly through Chinese e-commerce platforms, and that it has returned to operating profitability in the first quarter of the new financial year. Chair Bridget Coates said in announcing the raise that the structure “provides participation for all eligible shareholders while minimising dilution”, and Mr Gradon told the market the company now had “the fundamentals, the team, and now the financial foundation to strengthen our global position in mānuka honey”.
Fraser and Neave is the part of the deal most likely to matter in the medium term. The Singapore conglomerate, controlled by Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi’s TCC Assets, owns 100 Plus, F&N Magnolia and a portfolio of soft drink, dairy and confectionery brands sold across South East Asia. F&N already runs the kind of Asian retail distribution footprint that Comvita has spent fifteen years and tens of millions of dollars trying to build directly. A 19.99 percent shareholder of that profile, especially one that has paid cash to be there, has a genuine reason to push Comvita’s mānuka product into stores, online channels and food service across Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. That is a route to market that Comvita could not realistically replicate on its own balance sheet.
For New Zealand the deal is a small but meaningful test of whether the country’s homegrown consumer brands can be saved without simply being sold offshore. Comvita is one of the few publicly listed New Zealand companies with a genuine premium positioning in Asia, and its supply chain still runs from mānuka forests and beehives the company owns through to its own retail stores. With the raise closed, lenders refinanced, a strategic partner on board, and trading momentum back in the right direction, the company has bought itself the runway to prove the model still works at scale. Whether that translates into a recovery in the share price will depend on whether the mānuka honey category itself stops shrinking, and on how quickly F&N starts moving product through its Asian network.
Have you bought Comvita honey overseas, or do you hold the stock? We would love to hear what you think the mānuka category needs to do next. Drop a comment below.