INL withdraws bid

Press, 9 February 1983, Page 29

INL withdraws bid

PA Wellington Independent Newspapers, Ltd (INL), have called a halt to their bid for ordinary shares in Autocrat Sanvo Holdings (N.Z.). Ltd.

A brief statement from INL yesterday said that the directors have instructed Francis. Allison. Symes and Company to withdraw the instruction to stand in the market to purchase the shares at 370 c each.

INL has managed to purchase 171.158 of the shares.

When the offer was announced on February 1. the directors of INL instructed the brokers to purchase

316.383 ordinary shares at 370 c. 38c up on the price of the shares at the time. The directors said when the offer was announced that the reason for the bid was to maintain the INL shareholding at the same level as that of Sanyo of Japan which had recently made arrangements to bring its shareholding to 31.12 per cent.

Before the offer. INL had a shareholding of 25.65 per cent in the company. The group managing director for INL, Mr Allan Burnet, said that the reason for the withdrawal was that there were other people offering a higher price. “We understand there was

more than one bidder. We believe our price was a fair one and we are not prepared to increase it."

He said it was a "comfort" to INL that other people valued the shares in Autocrat so highly. He said INL shareholding in Autocrat "could be around 28 per cent. "We don't regard it as a defeat in any way whatsoever." Mr Burnet said he couldn't see a further bid for the shares in the immediate future.

"We haven't achieved our objective immediately, but we haven't lost the objective." he added.