Scott shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favour of JBS' 50.1% takeover in late November, but the April 30 deadline to complete the deal is fast approaching.
The Kaikorai Stream runs through Scott's Kaikorai Valley site so becomes subject to ‘‘sensitive land'' status by the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) regulations.
While shareholders who opted to take up a rights issue have their cash held in limbo, the delay means Scott cannot access the capital to be provided by the JBS deal.
It has been estimated Scott could benefit by up to $45million from the deal.
Scott's managing director, Chris Hopkins, was contacted yesterday and said he was ‘‘increasingly frustrated'' by the delay, caused by the OIO ‘‘working its way through [its] due process''.
An OIO manager contacted last month said at the time there was no statutory requirement for a timeframe in which to provide decisions and she was unable to say when a decision might be made.
That decision must then also be signed off by Land Information Minister Louise Upston.
Mr Hopkins said the only update he was able to give was ‘‘the application is progressing, but it's getting hell of a close''.
‘‘If it's not made by April 30, it will be back to square one,'' Mr Hopkins said.
When asked if the lack of a timely decision from the OIO was jeopardising the deal, he said it ‘‘could potentially be'', but that would be a question to put to JBS, he suggested.
Attempts were made to contact JBS Australia's chief executive, Brent Eastwood, yesterday in Brisbane, but he was unable to respond..
Mr Hopkins said ‘‘It's the lack of certainty; we don't know where we are in the [OIO] process,'' he said.
He was asked if Scott had considered asking for an extension beyond the April 30 deadline. He said he understood an extension would only mean reapplying again ‘‘from the beginning''.
‘‘It's an unsatisfactory situation all round, for shareholders and the company ... shareholders' rights issue cash is in limbo,'' he said.
He believed if it were not for the ‘‘sensitive land'' issue, the approval could have been signed off by December last year.
On other OIO decision timeframes, he noted Oceana Gold took almost a year to get OIO approval for its $132 million purchase of Newmont's Waihi gold mine in the central North Island.
Silver Fern Farms was also in the process of gaining OIO approval for the proposed $261million, 50% stake being sought by Chinese-owned Shanghai Maling, as announced last October.
OIO approval is expected to take six to nine months.
Last week Scott announced it was in negotiations to purchase a German engineering company.
Mr Hopkins said the OIO approval had no bearing on the German acquisition, ‘‘given strong cashflows and cash in hand'' which it reported in last week's half-year report.
Revenue for the half-year was up 46%, from $29.3 million a year ago to $42.8 million, while profit before tax rose 75%, from $1.6 million to $2.8 million.
Cashflow for the period was $9.9 million and cash in hand stood at $7.3 million.
He was unable to confirm the purchase price of the German operation yesterday, as ‘‘negotiations were still under way'' for the 40-person company, which has annual turnover of more than $13 million.
