Directors cannot recommend bid

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34047, 10 January 1976, Page 11

Directors cannot recommend bid

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND. The directors of JBL Minerals (N.Z.), Ltd, will make no recommendation on the take-over bid by General Finance, Ltd, and will not, with the exception of the Government receiver (Mr D. L. Hazard), accept the offer in respect of their own holdings.

Mr Hazard, who controls the 1.3 m shares held by J.B.L. Consolidated, will accept the bid only if no alternate bid is forthcoming. He will send in his acceptance only one week before the last day for acceptance. As announced, the bid is 26c cash a 50c share. This was a reasonable offer, having regard to the likely market value of the main asset, a property, and the discounted value of the debentures in J.B.L. Consolidated, Mr Hazard says.

He has suggested to the J.B.L. Minerals board that every effort should be made

to attract an offer for all assets, including the mineral rights, or an offer for the mineral rights as a package in addition to the General Finance bid.

This way, all shareholders would get some benefit from the mineral prospects, he says.

Mr Hazard points out that he, as receiver, has no income to spend on further prospecting, and he would have to let some, if not all, mineral rights lapse. The shares held by the J.B.L. group and secured to General Finance in terms of an advance of $174,331, were creating a serious erosion situation for the group, which he could not allow to continue indefinitely. A letter to shareholders of J.B.L. Minerals (N.Z.), Ltd, outlining his company’s takeover offer, has been issued by t 1.3 chairman of General Finance, Ltd (Mr F. V. Nobel Beasley).