Brierley co. to buy U.S. store chain

Press, 12 September 1984, Page 36

Brierley co. to buy U.S. store chain

NZPA-AP Cleveland Industrial Equity (Pacific), Ltd, the 80 per centowned Hong Kong subsidiary of Industrial Equity, Ltd, of Australia, which in turn is 54 per cent-owned by Brierley Investments, Ltd, of Wellington, has announced plans to take over a department store chain in the United States. The Higbee Company, which runs 11 department stores in north-east Ohio, said that it had a definitive merger agreement for an Industrial Equity subsidiary, lEPL Holdings Inc., to buy Higbee through a cash tender offer and subsequent cash merger. . Industrial Equity had owned 29.5 per cent of Higbee stock through purchases made since 1981, said Higbee’s chairman, Mr RobertBroadbent. Industrial Equity recently purchased 300,000 shares at a cost of SUSIS million.

That stock purchase plus

the planned purchase of 75,800 more shares will give Industrial Equity control of 55 per cent of the company’s 1.4 M outstanding common shares, Mr Broadbent said.

Higbee’s board of directors approved the tender offer on Friday and recommended that the remaining stockholders accept the 550 a share offer.

The tender was expected to begin tomorrow and the merger will be carried out at the end of the tender offer on October 10, the companies said. Higbee will be the surviving corporation.

Mr Broadbent said the merger ends more than three years of “intense competition” between Industrial Equity and American Values N.V., a Netherlands Antilles investment group, for control of the company. American Values owns about 21 per cent of Higbee’s stock.