By DANIEL RIORDAN
Mainfreight shareholders have approved the issue of 1.4 million extra shares to employees, although investors holding five million shares (about 7 per cent of the total) voted against the proposal.
Bruce Plested, managing director of the listed transport operator, said after yesterday's annual meeting that he did not know the identity of the dissenting shareholders, whose votes were recorded as coming from the NZCSD depository system.
The Business Herald understands several institutions made up the dissenting vote.
Under the proposal, the shares, worth 2 per cent of existing capital, will be issued to 1200 staff who have worked at the company for more than a year. They will be issued at a discount of 30 per cent to the market price.
Mr Plested told shareholders it was difficult to predict profit levels for the current year (through March 2001).
While the company's traditional businesses in New Zealand and Australia had produced satisfactory profits for the first quarter (to June 31), losses on Mainfreight's latest Australian acquisition (K&S Express, renamed Mainfreight Distribution) would have a negative effect on both the first and second quarter's results.
Those losses, largely the result of restructuring, had been expected, said Mr Plested.
The speed with which the new operation - bought for $A9.4 million ($12m) effective April 1 - produces profits would dictate this year's final result.
Meanwhile, one of Mainfreight's local competitors, Owens Group, has made a tentative start to the new financial year, with earnings in the three months since March down marginally on the same period last year.
That was despite sales being 13.5 per cent higher, chairman Norman Geary told the company's annual meeting on Wednesday.
Mainfreight investors oppose issue to staff
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