The quiet sale that could reshape Northland’s future.

For more than seventy years, Wharehine has been part of our Northland identity, the name stamped on bridges, quarries, and road signs from Matakana to Kawakawa. Founded in the 1950s by three Wellsford blokes with one bulldozer and a shared dream, the company became a cornerstone of the region’s growth.

Wharehine is woven into our landscape, literally. Its quarries at Matakana, Millbrook (Whangaripo), Ruakaka, Kawakawa, and Russell have supplied the rock beneath the Northern Gateway Toll Road, the NX2 Pūhoi–Warkworth motorway, and the Matakana Link Road.

That’s why locals were stunned when news surfaced last month that VINCI Construction, a French infrastructure giant, had applied to the Overseas Investment Office (OIO) to buy 100% of Wharehine Group Holdings, quarries, trucks, engineering workshop and all.

From Wellsford to the world

VINCI is no small fish. The French-based group builds roads, tunnels, airports, and bridges across 120 countries, employing more than a quarter of a million people.

Now they’re casting their eyes north, not just to own a Kiwi company, but, many believe, to secure control of the very materials that will build the next great motorway.

Because just beyond Warkworth lies the key to this whole story: the Warkworth - Te Hana Expressway, the next stage of the Northern Motorway.

This 26-kilometre project will extend four lanes of highway through Dome Valley, connecting Wellsford and Te Hana. It’s one of New Zealand’s biggest upcoming infrastructure projects, and VINCI is in the thick of it.

A motorway in the making

VINCI sits inside the consortium Go>North, one of three groups shortlisted by Waka Kotahi NZTA to build and operate the expressway. Their partners include HEB Construction and John Laing — all big hitters. So when VINCI moved to buy Wharehine just months before the shortlist was announced, the timing raised eyebrows across the construction world.

To many in Wellsford and Warkworth, it feels clear: the French didn’t just buy Wharehine because they wanted a quarry. They bought it because they want the motorway.

The jewel in the crown

If VINCI’s takeover goes through, they won’t just have a contractor, they’ll have the quarries that feed the motorway, the trucks that haul it, and the crews who know every bend of this landscape.

It’s a tidy, strategic move. And it may well make the Go>North consortium the frontrunner for the massive Northern Motorway Extension.

But it’s also the end of an era. Wharehine, once proudly “100% Kiwi owned,” could soon be a French-controlled subsidiary, its profits and direction flowing offshore for the first time in seven decades.

Tomorrow on the Matakana Coast App

Tomorrow we’ll explore Part Two: “Bought for the Motorway” Why Wharehine’s sale may be the smartest move VINCI ever made, diving deeper into how this acquisition positions VINCI to dominate the Northland Expressway and what it could mean for local jobs, ownership, and pride.

Stay tuned, the story of Wharehine is far from over.