Proxies win day for Brierley

By GEOFF SENESCALL

One minute into Brierley Investments' marathon four-hour annual meeting yesterday, chairman Sir Selwyn Cushing was in the gun.

But despite outrage from a sea of New Zealand shareholders who flocked to Auckland's Aotea Centre to protest about the company's move overseas, the ship is setting sail for Singapore.

It is going with founder Sir Ron Brierley's blessing. "I believe it is worth a go ... I think is a reasonable expectation that they [Brierley's new management] will be able to improve value rather than, regrettably in the past, destroy value."

Given the proxies sitting with the board in favour of the departure, the company's plan to relocate its head office to Singapore and incorporation to Bermuda was never in doubt.

While the exact numbers are expected to be released today, Brierley company secretary Mark Horton said it had proxies totalling 1.3 billion supporting each of the three resolutions that had to be passed for the migration to happen. This included 603 million shares held by Brierley's largest shareholder, Camerlin Group of Malaysia.

To vote down the motion, 25 per cent was needed. But proxies against only totalled around 40 million shares. Even if all the 58 million shares which were held on the floor voted no, it still would have fallen way short. Just over half Brierley's shares were voted.

Only around a quarter of the mainly elderly crowd lasted the meeting, which started at 11am and had no break. A sad end after a 38-year history in this country.

The meeting was also gruelling for Sir Selwyn, who is over 60 and is just eight months out of open heart surgery.

He had been nervous going into it. But unlike the Air New Zealand meeting where Sir Selwyn got ruffled by shareholder dissatisfaction, he handled the Brierley one well.

Firing the first shots was veteran shareholder rights campaigner Max Gunn, who questioned Sir Selwyn's suitability to chair the meeting. This was backed up by shareholder Bruce Sheppard.

As the meeting was threatening to turn into a rabble, Wellington lawyer Quentin Hay stepped in and defended Sir Selwyn.

The agenda got back on track. While no more personal attacks were made on Sir Selwyn, he was challenged on his 15 million Brierley options which needed shareholder approval.

Shareholders rejected his package on a show of hands. But with proxies totalling 1.1 billion shares in favour, approval was given.

Sir Selwyn's options sparked many questions about huge payouts to former directors, which Mr Gunn described as an "example of disgusting veracious corporate gluttony.

"God knows what is going to happen when the company goes to Bermuda and we have no say. The directors can help themselves to the whole bundle of assets."

Such sentiments were echoed by others in spite of optimistic words about the company's future by Sir Ron, a favourite among the 94,000, mainly small, New Zealand shareholders.

Sir Ron, however, admitted that many times over the past few months he had seriously considered the option of winding up Brierley and giving the cash back to shareholders.

But in the end he felt it was worth saving.

"The company still has advantages, both tangible and intangible. There is depth of experience and culture still remaining and it's reasonable to try and restore some additional value."

Brierley closed unchanged at 44c.