Kathmandu against takeover bid

Briscoe Group managing director Rod Duke said he was cautiously optimistic about the current financial year in what he described as a challenging retail environment. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Kathmandu is sticking with its recommendation that shareholders reject the takeover offer from Briscoe Group, saying again that the offer is inadequate and does not reflect what Kathmandu is worth.

This comes after Briscoe Group managing director Rod Duke said he would not up his offer price for the company meaning the takeover may have stalled indefinitely.

Kathmandu's board said under the Financial Markets Conduct Act a company has to announce to the market any change in its listed securities when there's acceptance of 1 per cent or more of a takeover offer. As at September 2, Briscoe had not made such an announcement to the NZX.

In a statement yesterday the company said it was also not going to extend the offer period, which closes on September 17, and still considered its offer for Kathmandu to be a good one.

"Briscoe Group considers that its offer price is attractive, and sees no reason to increase it. It encourages all Kathmandu shareholders to lodge their acceptances as soon as possible," it said.

Analysts and market commentators would not be drawn on whether this meant the takeover attempt was more or less likely to succeed.

Milford Asset Management analyst Victoria Harris was of the view that Duke would always stick to his guns and not budge on that price.

"I think that the market had realised that," Harris said. "The Kathmandu share price hasn't really gone beyond that $1.80 takeover price, it seems he's not been flexible at all with that price," she said.

The takeover bid was rejected by the Kathmandu board because it felt it undervalued the chain, which was put at between $2.10 and $2.41 by Grant Samuel's independent assessment of the offer. Kathmandu's shares fell 4.6 percent to $1.65 today.

Briscoe built up a 19.99 per cent stake in the company before signalling the takeover bid at the end of June.

The retailer also said it will announce its first-half results on Sept. 14. Briscoe shares fell 0.7 percent to $2.83.

Last week, Kathmandu announced a review of its head office structure which could cut up to 10 percent of top management employees in Australia and New Zealand.
Chief executive Xavier Simonet said the company was taking decisive action to address the recent underperformance in sales and profit and was looking to all areas of the business. The review is due for completion at the end of this month.

- additional reporting BusinessDesk