By Karen Scherer
Retail investor Eric Watson denies wanting to turn listed petroleum company Frontier Petroleum into his own finance company.
He conceded yesterday that he was looking at several opportunities in the finance area, but turning Frontier into his own finance arm was "definitely not" one of them.
There has been considerable speculation about his plans since his takeover of listed retailer Pacific Retail Group last year.
The group, which runs the Noel Leeming, Bond & Bond and Computer City chains, includes a lucrative finance arm which Mr Watson is keen to see expand.
Speculation was fuelled last month when his private investment company, Cullen Investments, bought up the 70 per cent of finance company Elders Rural Finance that it did not already own.
Mr Watson confirmed yesterday that Cullen was continuing to look at several opportunities, including buying a Dunedin-based finance company, Frontline Finance Holdings.
But he denied he had any plans to merge his investments, including BSG Finance.
"There's a number of opportunities out there ... but we've made no firm decisions about anything at this point in time ...
"Collectively, we would already have a significantly large finance company, but whether we would want to merge them together or not is not something we're focused on right now."
He also confirmed that internet retailer FlyingPig, in which he has a stake, is more likely to strike a deal with a bank than offer its own banking-type services.
When it was launched last October, FlyingPig claimed to be keen to eventually introduce services such as consumer finance, sharebroking and insurance.
Frontier is unlikely to turn to finance
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