Kerr too busy to attend Pyne Gould AGM, focuses on Perpetual sale
"I am unable to attend as we are working to a tight timeline to achieve a quality exit from Perpetual by calendar year's end."
Pyne Gould Corp says managing director and controlling shareholder George Kerr is too busy closing the sale of wealth manager Perpetual Group to attend the company's annual meeting in Auckland this afternoon.
Mr Kerr's Australasian Equity Partners Fund No 1 owns 76% of Pyne Gould, having failed this year to take the company private. He is currently overseas closing the deal, the company says in an update to the NZX today.
"Unfortunately, I am unable to attend as we are working to a tight timeline to achieve a quality exit from Perpetual by calendar year's end," he is quoted as saying in the statement. "This is a major priority to preserve value for shareholders."
The shares last traded at 26 cents and have declined18% this year. Mr Kerr paid 37 cents a share to take control of the company, while warning that the difficult process of selling assets meant Pyne Gould was no longer a generator of dividend income.
Selling Perpetual will leave Pyne Gould with no direct operating businesses in New Zealand. Its Torchlight Investment Group owns 19.7% of investor Torchlight Fund 1, which runs until 2019, and Torchlight Fund 2, which holds the remaining bad loans carved off when Marac Finance was sold into Heartland New Zealand.
Pyne Gould's Torchlight Securities owns 27% of Equity Partners Infrastructure Company No 1, which in turn owns 17% of UK motorway services company Moto International Holdings
(BusinessDesk)
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Kerr too busy to attend Pyne Gould AGM, focuses on Perpetual sale
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