Hanover Finance says it doesn't know about other offers

Hanover Finance said it has not received an offer from another party and is committed to take the proposal from Allied Farmers to Hanover investors.

A week ago listed rural services and finance company Allied Farmers proposed to buy the finance assets of Hanover and United in a deal worth about $400 million.

nzherald.co.nz reported today that a well known and "trusted" company was likely to offer Hanover and United investors a competitive alternative to Allied Farmers' debt-for-equity proposal within a few days.

A market source said he was helping another entity preparing a separate proposal, "which involves a superior capital structure and probably superior outcome".

Allied were not actually putting in much money, the source said.

Hanover Finance chairman David Henry said Hanover had no knowledge of any other interested party "and we will not speculate on media commentary".

"We believe the Allied proposal to be a serious and credible proposal, worthy of investor consideration," he said.

Allied Farmers had done extensive due diligence. Its proposal would be put to Hanover investors at a meeting in Auckland on December 16.

Yesterday, Allied also named the investor from whom it secured $7m of equity at the end of September.

The investor is Resimac Ltd, a pioneer of the Australian mortgage backed securities market that continued to sell securities backed by mortgages during the turbulent times in financial markets.

- NZPA