Rich Listers ratchet up Hellaby takeover
The Rich Lister family of the late Hugh Green have thrown another spanner into the revved up dispute surrounding Bapcor’s proposed takeover of Hellaby Holdings.
Australian automotive company Bapcor has offered to pay $3.30 a share to takeover Nzxlisted Hellaby, which it valued at $322.5 million.
Bapcor planned to create what it said would be the leader in the Australasian automotive aftermarket part industry, and has told Hellaby shareholders the offer gave them ‘‘certainty’’.
Hellaby, however, has labelled the takeover ‘‘opportunistic’’ and has backed the company to achieve significant growth over the next five years as a new strategy was implemented.
An independent report prepared by Grant Samuel valued Hellaby’s shares at between $3.60 and $4.12.
This report has been the subject of various letters to Hellaby’s shareholders from both the takeover target and Bapcor, with the latter going so far as to unsuccessfully take allegations of misleading and deceptive conduct to the Takeovers Panel.
Then on Friday the Green family, estimated to be worth $500m in this year’s National Business Review Rich List, decided to enter the debate.
Bapcor went into the takeover bid lauding the fact shareholdings worth nearly 30 per cent had already accepted the offer, but Hellaby said this only represented three of its more than 6000 shareholders.
The Green family’s Castle Investments, which held 27 per cent of Hellaby, was one of those to accept, but Hellaby had put this down to a court battle between family members.
But in a letter from the Hugh Green Group to Hellaby shareholders, the family said this claim was ‘‘wrong and misleading’’.
Furthermore, it believed Grant Samuel’s report overstated Hellaby’s value.
Hellaby chairman Steve Smith did not believe the letter added a lot to the takeover discussion.
Bapcor was clearly very keen to buy Hellaby, he said.
‘‘That’s fine, I just think the price they’ve put on the table’s not good enough.’’
Hellaby shares were up 5 cents to $3.29 on Friday.