GPG seethes at 'deliberate' Rubicon delay

By CHRIS DANIELS

Guinness Peat Group says Rubicon directors are deliberately frustrating its takeover attempt for the company by refusing to promptly send offer details out to its shareholders.

Rubicon has told GPG that it will have to wait until next Friday before Rubicon sends out its offer, saying it should be posted with an independent directors' recommendation and an assessment from valuers Grant Samuel.

GPG director Tony Gibbs said a revised notice of intention to make a takeover had been sent to Rubicon, and the board should have taken three minutes, instead of the three days it eventually took, to decide when it should be sent out.

"Rubicon is deliberately frustrating the GPG takeover offer," said Gibbs. "They have taken three days to come back to us and say they will only agree to that as long as you send it out in another 10 days' time. It is designed to frustrate us.

"We are looking at all other options.

"It is by no means certain that we are going to do it as they are trying to make us do it."

The offer, which does not become official until it is sent out to shareholders, is for 40 per cent of the Rubicon shares that GPG does not already own.

Rubicon shares have traded on the New Zealand Stock Exchange this year at an average of 64c each. They are now selling for just under the GPG offer price of 75c.

GPG, which owns just under 20 per cent of Rubicon, has made its takeover proposal conditional on its getting at least 50 per cent.

The Rubicon committee (which is the entire existing board minus Gibbs and his fellow GPG director, Gary Weiss) asked the Takeovers Panel this week what factors it should consider before making up its mind on the latest GPG request.

It was told that it had to make a decision that was "bona fide in the best interests of Rubicon shareholders".

It then decided that it would be in shareholders' best interests if they received the independent directors' response to the GPG offer, with a full independent advisers' report, at the same time as the GPG proposal.

This could all be sent out next Friday, September 27.

GPG's original $67 million takeover offer was declared to be against the rules by the Takeovers Panel, because it included a section saying that if GPG failed to reach 51.99 per cent, then it would settle for a stake anywhere between 30 per cent and 50 per cent, which would require shareholder approval.

The panel said GPG had to specify a percentage it was after, not give a range.

GPG wants to gain a foothold in the forestry industry through its control of Rubicon, which is the single biggest shareholder in Fletcher Challenge Forests, owning 18 per cent.

Gibbs spoke of a grand plan for consolidation of the forestry industry, when he used his Rubicon shareholding to campaign against Fletcher Challenge Forests' failed $1.4 billion plan to buy the huge Central North Island Forestry Partnership.