ATO attempts to freeze Nudie Juice sale proceeds; Sanitarium to take Up&Go liquid breakfasts to the UK: Midday Roundup

The Australian Tax Office has made an attempt to freeze the proceeds of the sale of Nudie Juice to Philippines food giant Monde Nissin, according to The Australian.

In the latest twist in an ongoing legal stoush, lawyers for the liquidator of BCI Finances, a company owned by Nudie founders the Binetter family, lodged an application in the Federal Court to stop proceeds of the $80 million sale being distributed. The ATO is a major creditor for BCI Finances.

Andrew Tokley SC, representing the liquidators of BCI Finances, told The Australian there are concerns third parties related to the Nudie group of companies had been selling down assets.

Tokley said liquidators did not want to stop the sale but needed to preserve proceeds so that “in some point in time” they could take “further steps” to recoup money.

Monde Nissin is reportedly in the final stages of acquiring Australian dip maker Menora Foods. The food conglomerate picked up Australia’s third-largest dip brand Black Swan for $115 million in July 2014.

Sanitarium to take Up&Go liquid breakfasts to the UK

Local cereal giant Sanitarium will make its first foray outside of Australia and New Zealand next month, launching its Up&Go liquid breakfast product in Tesco supermarkets in the UK.

Fairfax reports Sanitarium has entered into a joint venture with Melbourne-based finance and investment company Wingate for the expansion, which it hopes will secure the company at least 60% of the developing UK liquid breakfast market.

Sanitarium estimates 38 million British consumers skip breakfast at least once a week and Bernie Hendricks, general manager for international food at Sanitarium, told Fairfax the UK market for products like Up&Go could be worth as much as £300 million ($A581m) within five years.

Hendricks said the home-grown cereal maker is not daunted by taking on the dominant player in the UK breakfast market, Weetabix Ltd.

“We believe in this specific category we’ve had lots of years of experience and we have developed strong new product development expertise over the years,” he said.

“I’m not sure what the level of expertise that Weetabix has got in that category.”

Shares up ahead of RBA meeting

Aussie shares are up this morning but the next few trading days are going to be all about positioning for Tuesday’s Reserve Bank meeting, according to Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.

“The size of the decline in the Aussie Dollar over the past day is evidence that markets have become convinced the RBA will either cut the cash rate or move to a clear easing bias on Tuesday,” said Spooner.

“This expectation is likely to be played out further in the stock market today with ongoing support for dividend yield stocks like the big banks.”

The S&P/ASX200 benchmark was up 41 points to 5610.5points at 12:03PM AEDT. On Thursday, the Dow Jones closed up 1.31%, jumping 225.48 points to 17,416.8 points.