Silver Fern Farms is finalising an extension to the June 30 deadline for official approval to be granted for its joint venture with Chinese company Shanghai Maling.
The company has been awaiting an announcement from the Overseas Investment Office since farmer shareholders voted in favour of the deal in October last year.
In a statement at the weekend, chief executive Dean Hamilton said SFF continued to believe it would achieve OIO approval.
But it needed to allow more time to provide the required information and then for the OIO and government ministers to have sufficient time to review.
Both SFF and Shanghai Maling remained committed to the partnership, which would see an investment of $261million in SFF, he said.
The conditions of the deal stated the transaction had to be unconditional by June 30, unless the parties agreed to extend the deadline.
Earlier this month, BusinessDesk reported the OIO had downed tools on the application weeks ago and said it was still waiting for the applicants to supply further information.
As a result of the anticipated extension, the special meeting set down for July 11 in Dunedin, following a request from a group of shareholders to revisit the joint venture, has been deferred.
A new date would be set to allow the notice of meeting to be updated and distributed to shareholders with adequate time to review, Mr Hamilton said.
Requisitioners John Shrimpton and Blair Gallagher were seeking to stop the transition, and were urging shareholders to vote against the special resolution which asked them to approve the proposed partnership.
They believed the transaction had not properly been approved.
SFF's board has previously said it intended to complete the transaction, irrespective of the outcome of the resolution.
