N.Z.I. voting may be upset

Press, 24 April 1980, Page 19

N.Z.I. voting may be upset

A side effect of the efforts by New Zealand Insurance Company, Ltd, to flush out the secret buyer of large parcels of shares is that some shareholders may not be able to vote at next week’s special meeting on the company’s activities in South Africa.

On Monday, the Government invoked part four of the Trustee Companies Act 1967 at the request of N.Z.I. This forces buyers of trustee company shares to reveal their identity. Earlier this month, N.Z.I. had sent proxy voting forms for the May 2 meeting, which had been requisitioned by the anti-apartheid Insurance Companies Campaign. After Monday’s move by the Government N.Z.I. has to post an additional form to shareholders requiring them to say that they are still the shareholders. These are being posted now, and have to be returned by 10 a.m. next Wednesday. Mr John Minto,- secretary of the anti-apartheid group, says that because of Anzac Day this will not give shareholders enough time to arrange proxy votes.

The N.Z.I. general manager (Mr D. G. Hare) said that it was unfortunate; he

hoped the ' .company wbuld get as many proxy forms back as possible. He emphasised that the decision to send out additional forms had nothing to do with the South African issues. He said the meeting could'not be postponed. By law it had to be held within 40 days of the requisition; the day of .the meeting — Friday, May 2— the day

It may be some time before the mystery buyer is forced into the open, and meanwhile the purchasers of N.Z.I. shares may be inconvenienced. At present every shareholder, however small his purchase, must complete a certificate stating the identity of . the true owners of the shares bought. Delays are likely while sharebrokers attempt to obtain statutory certificate forms, or until N.Z.I. prints and distributes forms, which is now being done. Foreign investors with eyes on the New Zealand Insurance Company’s fat property and investment portfolio are believed to be behind the recent spate of N.Z.I. share purchases. The company’s directors ‘have approached all New

Zealand companies which would have the interest and capability of making a takeover bid for N.Z.1., and all have denied being involved in the recent share transactions, or of wanting to take over N.Z.I.

The plum for any outside investor wishing to take over N.Z.I. lies with the company’s substantial and undervalued property and investment portfolio. It has valuable properties overseas which would attract any foreign buyer, and its two major activities could be neatly hived off to the insurance industry here, leaving a pot of gold for the successful bidder — if a bid was forthcoming.

Steady buying interest in N'Z.I. shares has been apparent over the past two months, though not of the scale necessary to prepare for a take-over. Since the beginning of March, 349,000 N.Z.I. shares have been traded making up about 2 per cent of the N.Z.I. capital.

The largest shareholder is an overseas-owned company, with 3.3 per cent of the shares. Its shareholdings are split between Munich Holdings, Ltd, of Canada, with

1.8 per cent, and Munchener Ruckversicherungs Gesellschaft, of West Germany, with 1.5 per cent. The largest New Zealand shareholder is the N.Z. Insurance Company’s own trust department, with 2.8 per cent of the capital, or 4'57,000 shares. In all, only 17.4 per cent of the capital is held by the top 20 shareholders.