No T.N.T. bid with R.A.O.

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32407, 21 September 1970, Page 1

No T.N.T. bid with R.A.O.

(NZ.P.A. Staff Correspondent) SYDNEY, Sept. 20. The Australian company, Thomas Nationwide Transport, will not bid for the Union Steam Ship Company in conjunction with R.A.O. Holdings, Ltd, of Tauranga.

The managing director of T.N.T. (Mr E. H. P. Abeles) said this in Sydney on Friday night after returning from New Zealand. Mr Abeles said R.A.O. w4s free to bid for the Union Company. “That is their business, but we will not be incorporating R.A.O. in our bid,” he said. The decision had to be made because T.N.T. believed that the future management of the Union Company should come through the present management supported by T.N.T. In New Zealand Mr R. Owens, chairman of directors of R.A.0., had said earlier that his firm wanted control over management and policy of the Union Company. He also said his firm would seek a majority shareholding. Mr Abeles said T.N.T. would invite substantial New Zealand participation in the bid for the Union line. But he said he was not vet in a position to say what the T.N.T.-New Zealand proportions would be. “We will inform the New Zealand Government in due course of our plans with other New Zealand interests.” he said. He said he bad met Mr Owens for an hour in Auckland on. Thursday night. The talks were friendly and he would always be pleased to meet Mr Owens. R.A.O. “AMAZED” In Tauranga yesterday Mr Owens said he was amazed by Mr Abeles’s statement, the Press Association reported. “I can’t understand what Mr Abeles is getting at,” he said. "He rang me up asking for me to see him. We hadn’t got round to discussing any possibility of joint bids. We had a very cordial discussion and were going to meet in a fortnight or three weeks time, and that was the way it was left. “I was quite shattered that he had made this statement. I have been in business a long time and have dealt with a lot of people but I have never been talked at through the newspapers that way. “It would have been appreciated if he had had the courtesy of letting me know.” He said R.A.O. Holdings had many business friends in Australia, but T.N.T. had never been among them. He said the P and O Company was not worried whether the Union Company was sold to New Zealand or to Australian interests, or to anybody else. This attitude was vitally important and of great concern to New Zealand. He said he was waiting to hear from P and O about a proposed meeting. He had been in touch with the P and O and had asked them for the meeting.