The acting chief executive of Oceania Dairy, Paul Park, said the decision to extend the deadline for raising $74.75 million was due to a longer-than-expected resource consent process.
Mr Park was confident those delays would not prevent the commissioning of the company's new Glenavy factory in July 2011, as draft consent conditions had been agreed to by the Waimate District Council, Environment Canterbury and the applicant.
"The draft conditions are being circulated to submitters for comment.
"Due to the extra round of public consultation, a resource consent decision is now likely in March," he said.
Oceania Dairy hopes to have a cornerstone shareholder, possibly from overseas, own about 30% of 23 million shares on offer, with up to half owned by farmer-suppliers and the balance by local, financial and high-net worth investors.
"Everything is tracking along very well.
It is always a challenge to raise capital in the current economic environment," he said.
Local dairy farmers had been keen to invest in the company, but many did not have the funds.
The 23 million shares to be offered represented 88.46% of the company, at $3.25 a share or $4.25 a share through a deferred payment arrangement.
The minimum investment was 160,000 shares.
As with Fonterra, farmer-suppliers who invest in Oceania would own one share for every kg of milk solids, but their shares would rank equally with general investors and they would be fully transferable.
Mr Park said Oceania wanted to ensure the company was not dominated by large corporate or foreign companies but by farmer-suppliers who would be targeted within a 50km radius of the Glenavy factory.
It planned to build at Glenavy an eight tonne an hour powder plant producing whole and full milk powder along with anhydride milk fat (AMF).
Mr Park said the factory would be designed to include an AMF plant, but another option was to negotiate AMF processing capacity at the adjacent New Zealand Dairies factory at Studholme.
Tenders to construct the factory were already in the market, and Mr Park expected to award the contract in April.
Construction should start in the last quarter of this year.
Oceania Dairy, established by boutique Christchurch merchant bank, private equity and corporate advisory firm Ocean Partners, has been working with specialist dairy marketing and logistics company Global Dairy Network.
It would target markets in Asia and the Middle East.
The deadline for indications of interest was 5pm on March 31 with the offer closing on April 7, Mr Park said.
