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Aurora is a New Zealand shell-egg producer.

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The unit economics run on an 18-month bird cycle - eighteen weeks of pullet sunk cost,

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fifty weeks of peak lay at roughly 300 eggs per hen per year, and depopulation around seventy-five weeks.

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The bird is a depreciating asset; the sheds, the brand, the customer relationships

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are downstream of getting the next pullet flock into peak lay on schedule.

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Spent-hen disposal is a low-margin rendering or pet-food channel - call it a cost not a revenue line.

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Manure offtake to Ravensdown and Ballance is a real NZ$300-500k per year revenue offset that often gets missed.

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Alternative-use optionality on the underlying landholdings is small at this scale -

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Aurora's two sites sit on rural-zoned, HPL-overlay land outside the Auckland data-center cluster,

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with 24-36 month consenting risk on any non-rural use.

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With that context, here are our preliminary findings, followed by our open questions for confirmatory diligence.

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Finding one: Aurora is the number two player by volume in the New Zealand market,

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with roughly 17 to 19 percent share and a 610,000 layer flock, sitting behind Mainland Poultry.

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Finding two: The company's production mix is roughly 40 percent colony cage, 30 percent barn, and 30 percent free-range.

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Finding three: The asset's central tension is its 40 percent colony-cage exposure,

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which must be converted to barn or free-range to meet the end of 2027 retailer-driven cage-free deadline.

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Finding four: Customer concentration is high, with the top three retailers accounting for roughly 70 percent of Aurora's revenue.

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Question one: Can Aurora realistically complete the colony-to-barn transition by the end of 2027?

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We need to pressure-test the capex magnitude, day-old chick supply lead times, and resource-consent processes.

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Question two: Is the free-range premium durable?

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The broker claims it is, but data suggests compression is happening as barn supply scales.

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Question three: Is there a specific, named non-egg buyer prepared to bid on either of Aurora's sites

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at a premium to rural-production going-concern?

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Until a buyer is named, the alternative-use optionality has negative expected value.