Sir Michael Fay is trying to find out the full extent of the relationship between the leading Chinese bidder for the Crafar farms and Landcorp.

While the receivers for the Crafar farms, KordaMentha, have already knocked back his group’s lowball offer Fay has now filed an Official Information Request with Landcorp attempting to find out details of the relationship between it and the Shanghai Pengxin group.

Landcorp is reportedly in preliminary talks with the Chinese about sharemilking the farms should they get approval from the Overseas Investment Office.

While Shanghai Penqxin is the leading bidder for 16 Crafar farms, it has been waiting for over half a year for an answer from the Overseas Investment Office as to whether or not it can buy the farms.

Business Day reported that Fay’s group had serious concerns about the state-owned farming corporation’s involvement with Shanghai Pengxin, calling them sharemilkers for an absentee foreign owner.

However, Federated Farmers says Landcorp is only doing what it is supposed to – that is maximising returns for New Zealand.

Federated Farmers President Bruce Wills says the management of Landcorp have their charter, and their direction.

"They just returned $27.5 million return to the Crown after this year’s very strong result. That’s good for the crown coffers and good for the New Zealand taxpayer

“In my view with this Crafar thing they are just purely and simply pursuing another commercial avenue.”