Rural Portfolio Investments, the company owned by Craig Norgate and Baird McConnon, has sold half its 12% stake in PGG Wrightson.

RPI offloaded 48 million shares at 56 cents to an unnamed buyer. The money from the sale will be used to repay debt, after it announced last week it couldn’t meet its next dividend payment to preference shareholders.

PGG has had a tough 12 months itself,  delivering a poor annual result at last year’s AGM after it was forced to look offshore to find a new cornerstone shareholder in Chinese company Agria.