No Fletcher, no Forests as sale ratified

By PAM GRAHAM

The Fletcher Challenge name went - along with most of the trees - at Fletcher Challenge Forests special shareholder meeting yesterday.

The company was rebadged Tenon at midday as shareholders voted to sell all but one of the company's forests.

The Fletcher lion outside the meeting and around the country came down, and a new Tenon logo, with a golden wooden tick, went up.

Chairman Sir Dryden Spring said the name Tenon - a type of wood joint - signified strength, was short and unique, and lent itself to strong branding,

Sir Dryden would not be drawn on suggestions that the last rites had been performed on the Fletcher Challenge dynasty in forests.

He said the forest sale was one step in a transition from tree farming to processing that cut links with the past.

He got a clear message from shareholder Steve Atkins: if the board was to be handed a new, streamlined company "make sure you do a good job of it".

Sir Dryden closed the meeting in the name of Tenon and the company's stock exchange code will change to TEN in five days.

The new logo was one of the industry's better-kept secrets considering the necessary logistics.


No shareholders asking questions identified themselves as being from the New Zealand Shareholders Association and chairman Bruce Sheppard was not there.

The lengthy meeting of about 500 shareholders questioned the price the forests were sold for and arrangements to meet wood supply contracts in the future, but the outcome was never really in question.

Sir Dryden ordered that the microphone to shareholder Gerard Pinn be turned off on several occasions. Pinn was concerned that the forest sale was too radical, but told Sir Dryden "I like you".

He argued that the remuneration policies of near-20 per cent shareholder Rubicon should have been disclosed to Fletcher Forests shareholders when they voted on Rubicon directors.

Rubicon directors Michael Andrews and Luke Moriarty were not in the quorum of directors voting to recommend the sale and return of capital.

The chairman held proxies for 152.7 million shares in favour of selling which did not include Rubicon's votes. The company did not vote undirected proxies from its American Depository Receipts. The practice had raised the ire of the Shareholders Association at past meetings.


The forests were sold to a consortium of Auckland property investors and North American pension funds for $560 million, and $349 million will be returned to shareholders in a cash payment and share cancellation next month.

The sale is now unconditional and will be settled on February 27.

The second half of the $17 million break fee to failed bidder the Campbell Group will now be paid, freeing Tenon to negotiate freely the sale of its remaining Tarawera Forest right.

Sir Dryden said the best price had been achieved from a formal sale.

Tenon will now vigorouslyoppose Carter Holt Harvey and Norske Skog's contention that it should own forests to honour a pulp wood supply contract. A loss could see it forced to own enough forests to supply 300,000 tonnes of pulp wood a year.