Atlas ‘doctors’ granted options

Press, 1 May 1984, Page 19

Atlas ‘doctors’ granted options

PA Auckland Atlas Corporation, Ltd, shareholders yesterday granted options to the company’s chairman, Mr Alan Gibbs, and its chief executive, Mr Charles Bidwill, to buy 10 per cent of the company’s shares. The resolution was passed by a majority of a handful of shareholders present at an extraordinary meeting. The deputy chairman, Mr Tom Clark, said that Mr Gibbs and Mr Bidwill had been brought into Atlas in 1980 to act as company “doctors.”

At that time, the affairs of the group were in a “terrible mess” and its shares were selling at 25c. Atlas shares were now

selling at $1.65, and the company had made “tremendous progress,” especially in the last 18 months. The problems of the company were such that Mr Gibbs and Mr Bidwill had virtually had to make a fresh start, he said. They had now, however, moulded a new bright young team of executives who were “going out to murder the opposition.” Under the resolution, Mr Gibbs and Mr Bidwill have rights to buy 435,000 shares each at 115 c.

These options can be exercised in lots of 50,000 and are being issued in return for restraint of trade agreements running for five years.