'Star' controls 'Oamaru Mail'

Press, 16 August 1980, Page 1

'Star' controls 'Oamaru Mail'

PA Dunedin N.Z. News, Ltd, is now believed to have control of the . “Oamaru Mail” newspaper with its cash offer of $17.50 a share. The big newspaper and magazine chain first approached main shareholders, of the North Otago paper about a month ago, July was also the month in which the N.Z. News publication, the “Christchurch Star,” changed its name .to the “Star” and began printing an Otago edition on the “Oamaru Mail” press. The chairman of N.Z.: News, Mr G. T. - Upton, told the annual meeting on July 24 that the company had launched a full takeover’ bid for the “Mail’s” 40,000 .shares. The bid values the company at $700,000. Mr Upton would not confirm that the bid had been successful. “Developments will be announced to the Stock Exchange and you will read about it in the Christchurch “Star,” he said. •However, Mr G. Bulleid, of Dunedin, confirmed the price and the probable success of the bid. “It’s a pretty reasonable sort of deal as far as the shareholders are concerned,” he. said. “I am happy ’ with the price.” . .'

Asked whether he felt’ any pangs at seeing a family - controlled newspaper change owners, he said. “We are all getting old and it’s time to call, a halt. The shares have been so _dispersed by death that . it is no longer a private company.” Mr Bulleid, whose brother, Mr V. C. Bulleid, is chairman of the “Mail,” said: “At the age of 60 plus, selling out is sheer economic common sense. “Such a -company needs the continuity of a family member to look after it and nobody among the , 60 shareholders is in a position to do so.”