KEY POINTS:
It's usually liquidators who are chasing others over missed deadlines but this week the tables were turned on Corporate Finance.
The Auckland-based liquidator got a behind-the-scenes telling off from the NZX for failing to notify them of listed company OPI New Zealand's going into liquidation.
Corporate Finance placed
the failed company into liquidation on November 14 but didn't tell the NZX about it until this week after its first liquidation report came out.
The delay in the announcement would have made little difference to shareholders as the company was already suspended from trading and its largest shareholder, Australian property and investment group Octaviar, is itself already in liquidation.
But the news would certainly have been of interest to debenture holders in OPI New Zealand's subsidiary OPI Pacific Finance.
Still, with so many companies going into liquidation at the moment, it's perhaps not surprising liquidators have a lot of things on their minds.
BUYING OR SELLING?
In an ironic move, the Commerce Commission has finally come out with guidelines to assist businesses and their advisers in mergers and acquisitions.
The commission has been consulting the public in a bid to make the process easier and as part of it has revised the application form for merger and acquisition clearances.
The guidelines outline the process, indicative timeframes and the kind of information the commission looks at when considering clearance. The way the market is going this year it will be lucky if any company needs to use them.
Stock Takes can't think of any successful merger or acquisition activities so far this year. But we live in hope.
RAISING CASH
Meanwhile, the NZX has also come out with its own consultation on proposed changes to listing rules designed to make it easier for businesses to raise money.
It wants to replace the requirement for a prospectus to go out in conjunction with a capital-raising offer with a simplified term-sheet document.
The proposal already has the backing of Rob Cameron's Capital Markets Taskforce and is likely to be widely supported by businesses who will be looking for alternatives to raise cash other than through the banks.
Bond offers in recent weeks have already shown there is strong demand out there from investors looking for somewhere to park their money.
WIN-WIN FOR IRG
Debenture holders in troubled investment fund IMP Diversified Income have voted in favour of taking up shares in Brent King's Investment Research Group, formerly known as Viking Capital.
The proposal was just one of those put to investors at a meeting yesterday to try to allow the fund to keep operating in a moratorium.
Instead of being paid out cash, investors will be distributed shares in IRG which are currently owned in a 7.38 per cent block by the fund's manager, Intellectual Capital Partners.
The move had already been welcomed by King, who would not comment on the performance of the fund but said the distribution was logical.
"It returns assets to the unit holders and allows them to determine the future of the asset."
But the investment could be conceived as far more beneficial to IRG which gets to boost the number of its shareholders up to a base that complies with the main NZX board rather than the smaller NZAX.
The situation must rankle with investors who have already lost money through the fund's direct investment in ICP Bio and now have to take shares in IRG which was also a major investor in ICP Bio. Investment Research Group shares closed at 7c yesterday.
GROWING THE PATCH
Children's clothing retailer Pumpkin Patch has enjoyed a spectacular surge in its share price since it announced a buyback of some 8.35 million shares on Monday.
The buyback, which will be handled by First NZ Capital, will see up to 4.99 per cent of the retailer's total ordinary share issue bought back over a period of a year.
While other retail stocks continue to languish at bargain basement prices, Pumpkin Patch shares have surged off a historic low of 80c hit last Friday, closing steady at $1.10 yesterday.
Among the buyers will no doubt be canny investors hoping for a quick profit when the company starts reclaiming shares today.
Investors still undecided as to whether it's time to accumulate shares may have also been buoyed by the buyback announcement.
The company has used a foreign exchange gain to reduce bank debt by $30 million, and was on track to reduce $30 million worth of stock to more comfortable levels in the next 24 months.
IS THAT NECESSIONARY?
The latest buzzword to emerge from the financial crisis is "necessionary" - industries that are necessary in a recession.
The term crops up in a Citigroup report that says property and casualty insurance, managed healthcare, phone service and pay-TV look like future market leaders.
Phone companies have held up best. Their S&P 500 gauge slid 4.8 per cent. Cable TV stocks dropped 20 per cent. The insurance group declined 26 per cent,
while the managed-health group sank 33 per cent.
Focusing on businesses to avoid, the Citigroup report singles out beverage companies, whose bottled-water sales may suffer as the economy slows, and cosmetics makers, whose more expensive items may be hit by a slump in demand.
SAILING INTO PORT
Christchurch City Holdings has hit its target of buying up another 2.5 per cent of Lyttelton Port Company - and more importantly edged closer to de-listing the port from the NZX.
Christchurch City Holdings (CCHL) has taken its ownership to 78.16 per cent after a $2.75 a share offer.
The other major shareholder is Port Otago with 15 per cent of the shares.
One aspect of the offer that raised some eyebrows was a limitation to buy a maximum of 5000 shares per shareholder, except where it left the shareholder with fewer than 5000 shares - in which case all remaining shares could be sold into the offer.
So in theory a shareholder with 9999 shares could sell them all but another with 10,000 shares could only sell half.
CCHL chief executive Bob Lineham says: "It's just so we don't leave a small shareholder high and dry basically, just to be fair. We had to draw the line somewhere."
Before the offer started there were about 1430 shareholders of which 920 held 5000 shares or less.
CCHL's prime motivation is to reduce the number of shareholders, with a medium term goal to delist the company, he says.
The share creep for another 2.5 per cent takes CCHL to its 5 per cent limit in a 12 month rolling period without triggering a takeover. "There's no point in us triggering a takeover because we know Port Otago won't sell their shares at the moment," Lineham says.
BOLD STEP FOR ENERGY SOE
Solid Energy boldly went where no SOE had gone before and opened itself up to public scrutiny at a listed company-style meeting in Auckland this week.
With the welcome mat out for all, proceedings were turned to custard for a time by environment protesters who accused the coal producer of "greenwash".
But Solid has won qualified praise within the energy sector for a brave first step and there is some political drive from new Energy Minister Gerry Brownlee for other SOEs to do the same.
Some are multi-billion dollar organisations with huge market influence within the electricity sector in particular. Their mandate is to operate in a "profitable and efficient manner" comparable with companies not owned by the taxpayer but disclosure requirements are less rigorous than listed peers.
Although owned by 4.3 million New Zealanders, some SOEs have a reputation of caring about only shareholding ministers.
Analysts want to know more about how subsidiaries are performing, if only to help benchmark the performance of listed companies.
