P.P.C.S. meets with C.F.M. management

Press, 17 April 1982, Page 18

P.P.C.S. meets with C.F.M. management

The chairman of the Primary Producers’ Co-operative Society,, Mr R. A. Burnside, and the Dunedih-based meat exporter's "chief executive, Mr I. H. Jenkinson, yesterday held a meeting with the senior management of the Canterbury . Frozen Meat Company, Ltd. This follows the resignation on Thursday of the chairman of C.F.M., Mr I. E. O. McKellar, and a director, Mr C. E. W. Averill, from the board of directors. The cause of the resignations was a request by the Primary Producers’ Cooperative Society (P.P.C.S.) for a meeting of C.F.M. shareholders to reduce the number of directors on the board from nine to seven and to remove Messrs McKellar

and Averill as directors. The two directors decided to resign rather than allow the meeting to proceed because P.P.C.S.’s., voting strength of a 49 per cent shareholding in C.F.M. No comriient was made yesterday on what was said at the meeting with the senior management of C.F.M., but Mr I. H. Jenkinson said that the position of P.P.C.S. was that what had happened was in the best interests of all C.F.M. shareholders. Mr Jenkinson said that the Securities Commission had already approached P.P.C.S. and that there had been a long and amicable exchange of views. Messrs McKellar and Averill said in a statement on

Thursday that they had asked the commission to consider holding an inquiry into ■P.P.C.S.’s involvement with C.F.M., and they welcomed such a move because it would be a better forum for discussion of the issues involved than a shareholders’ meeting. Mr Jenkinson would not say when the commission had contacted P.P.C.S., but said that if and when any inquiry was held the cooperative intended to cooperate fully in any hearing. He would, not comment on what were the “difference in philosophies” between the cooperative and the listed company, the phrase used by P.P.C.S. when it first requested the removal' of Mr McKellar from the board of C.F.M.