New Zealand Forest Products

The company continued to expand following World War II and was a large-scale manufacturer of structural timber, board and other packaging products.

The company and its tenacious managing director were consumed by a long, drawn-out battle to create a vertically integrated forestry and pulp and paper industry based in the North Island.

By the time of his death, Sir David Henry had put New Zealand on the map in terms of a viable, vertically integrated, forest-based operation.

Following the collapse of Elders NZFP in 1988 following the stockmarket crash, the assets were purchased by Carter Holt Harvey (CHH), another smaller New Zealand forestry company.

The purchase of the NZFP assets tripled the size of CHH and boosted its revenues by 60% to top NZ$7.0 billion, then a record for any New Zealand company.