BREWER-MIC

Hello everyone,
I'll start off with the disclaimer that I'm not British but love your forum as it is so rich in information. I currently live in Colorado, USA and own and operate several restaurants and breweries. I'm very serious about moving to New Zealand. So serious I tried applying through the SMC but was two classes shy to make it as an environmental scientist (I have a masters of science in Geology). Step two is two do what I do best and have been doing since 1999 and do a brewery and wood-fired pizzeria through the LTBV scheme.

I'd be ever grateful for some answers and opinions so here goes:

Best case scenario is that a small brewery with grossly underutilized capacity is for sale and I would buy. Benefit to New Zealand is I'd produce more using New Zealand ingredients resulting in considerably more excise taxes from alcohol production, hire several full time employees and double that part time (compared to zero employees now), add a wood-fired pizza oven and on-premise sales. Overall sales would be increased about 3x first year with and additional 20% growth following years.

Second best scenario is that I find a suitable building for lease and start from scratch creating same number of jobs, purchasing New Zealand grown malt and hops, creating more excise tax revenue, tourism, and contributing to the community.

My question is that my business plan that is nearly complete is written so that it handles either scenario. I have repeatedly stated that upon approval of my LTBV I would go to where I want to do it (Region spanning from Nelson-Motueka) and if the brewery that was for sale was available I'd buy it otherwise I'd pursue one of the several properties for lease that I've been looking at. Will immigration need me to be more specific about my plans? Either way I will have a brewery and pub started and producing revenue within 6 months time.

Second question: I will keep my US based restaurants and breweries as they run very independently now. They are seperated by 400miles so I can demonstrate we know how to run them remotely. I want to use the income I gain from them to justify the income to support me in New Zealand (approx $450,000US/year). Will this suffice to immigration or do they want to see money in hand?

Third question: I have approximately $150,000 USD to use to start this which is plenty based on all my research and past experience. If I don't get my LTBV I will want to put it to work over here and if it takes 9 months for approval I will put it to use before then and just make sure I can get it again upon approval. Will they give a conditional approval based upon seeing the funds when they give the approval or do they need to see the funds before even considering the application?

Thanks again in advance for all those who give any advice. I have found a few answers over at http://www.enz.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=42 but this place is a gold mine.

Cheers,
Mic

MrsFychan

Hi Mic, welcome to the forum.
Not done the LTBV myself but some have, some have been successful in applying and some have not.
Your first port of call would be to familiarise yourself with:

http://www.immigration.govt.nz/migra...m/invest/ltbv/


Also check out these other threads

http://britishexpats.com/forum/searc...archid=5404015

BEVS

Hi there and welcome to our wee NZ forum.

I'm going to move this thread into the main Nz forum for a short while so that it will be more visible. I realise you are asking Immy based questions but not everyone pops into Immy.

By the way, we are in Mapua . Half way between Motueka and Nelson. Several micro breweries around here.

You may have stumbled across The Golden Bear which is located at Mapua wharf. ( click the link)

Reason I am linking to the site is that it is owned and run by a bloke called Jim - A Californian

Maybe contact him . You never know , he might be happy to share .

BREWER-MIC

Thanks Bevs! Looking forward to getting there. Have our background checks, meds (except final blood results), and business plan ready. Hope to submit in the next few days and really hoping that there will be a less than 90 day turn around...Hope to get a few opinions/answers to my questions prior to submitting.

Thanks,
Mic

j19fmm

Good luck with your submission. Our LTBV took around 2 months, even with a couple of queries. x