By PAULA OLIVER
Fletcher Challenge has deferred payments of this year's final dividends and confirmed that it expects to reveal the future of the company and its three divisions at one time.
Market sources believe that could be within two weeks.
Fletcher had intended to confirm its dividend this week, with shareholders receiving payment in two weeks, unless a sale of either division was recommended to the board.
Yesterday, chairman Roderick Deane deferred payment of the 10c and 8c dividends indefinitely, saying final decisions had not yet been made on the separation of Building, Energy and Forests.
The company was evaluating offers, and needed to decide whether to sell each division or establish any of them as stand-alone businesses.
Speculation surrounding the future of each division is rife, and analysts were quick to interpret the delay as proof that acceptable bids are on the table for the divisions.
On Friday, the Commerce Commission is expected to rule on Royal Dutch Shell's application to buy Energy.
An analyst suggested that if Fletcher was looking at making either division a standalone business, its dividend would have been paid.
But spokeswoman Ginny Radford said the delay was simply to evaluate all options.
Forsyth Barr analyst Ian Graham said he was not surprised that Dr Deane had deferred the dividends, and he expected that the low New Zealand dollar would have rekindled interest among US bidders.
"The dollar means that a US bidder could be offering a lot more to Fletcher for Energy while not increasing its own US dollar cost, so that's likely to be attractive," he said.
"Energy would be most attractive for a corporate player, and its price is likely to eliminate a lot of people."
Should Shell's application to buy Energy be rejected, Mr Graham said, it would be difficult to predict who else could step in.
But the state of the dollar was likely to play a big part.
Commission spokesman Vince Cholewa confirmed that the decision would be announced on Friday.
Energy is considered the easiest division to sell, the diversity of Building and the debt level of Forests remaining difficult propositions.
Last week, a late bidder for Building was rumoured to have put in a 285c offer, and it was speculated that it could be a US fund looking to split the division.
The diversity of Building remains its biggest stumbling block, but interest in separate parts of it is rumoured to be strong. An analyst suggested Steel and Tube could be interested in the steel division, and OneSteel was likely to be having a look at it.
Concrete was likely to be attractive to a Japanese company, but building products would be difficult to lock up a buyer for because it was more domestically concentrated, the analyst said.
The final hurdle remains debt-ridden Forests, and Ginny Radford could not say if its dispute with Chinese partner Citic was any closer to resolution.
Analysts said that with Fletcher keen to determine the future of all three divisions at once, and preferably by the end of the year, the final decision on Forests could be looming because of the imminent commission decision on Energy.
Fletcher delays dividends as buyers hover
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