D Scene: Max for Maxton
Published in D Scene 14 November 2008 page 7
A company in which former Otago Community Trust chairman John Farry has an interest has made a killing on an Otago Stadium property transaction.
Farry – a cousin of Carisbrook Stadium Trust chairman Malcolm Farry – is a third shareholder in Maxton Holdings which bought 8 Awatea St for $220,000 in 2001. Dunedin City Council reportedly paid Maxton $1.6 million for the site in .June as part of its buy-up of land needed for the ambitious indoor Otago Stadium proposal.
Asked for a comment on Maxton’s windfall, John Farry says: “That property is a piss in the bucket as far as I’m concerned. It makes absolutely no difference to my life at all.”
Carisbrook Stadium Trust chief Ewan Soper tells D Scene the purchase of property from Maxton was negotiated on behalf of council by the Carisbrook Stadium Trust – “on the same commercial principles as all the other property purchases for the new stadium”.
The council also approved the purchase of the Maxton Holdings’ property, Soper says.
Soper adds: “For the avoidance of doubt, neither Malcolm Farry nor his immediate family has any involvement or financial interests in Maxton Holdings.”
