BIL buys interest in Hellaby

Press, 15 January 1986, Page 27

BIL buys interest in Hellaby

Wellington reporter Brierley Investments has purchased shares from its subsidiary, Huttons NZ, Ltd, which wil give it a 13 per cent stake in R. and W. Hellaby, Ltd, run by a former Brierley director, Mr Bruce Judge. Hellaby was last year turned into an “industrial investment” company when Ariadne Australia, Ltd, of which Mr Judge is chairman, bought a 40 per cent stake from Canterbury Frozen Meat.

A Hellaby director, Mr Graeme McKenzie, a former Brierley man, said his company is perfectly relaxed about the BIL holding. He said there was a gentlemen’s agreement between Mr Judge and the BIL deputy chairman, Mr Bruce Hancox, that BIL would buy the Hutton holding if that company could not operate a joint venture with Hellaby’s Peach operation. Hellaby decided to keep its Peach smallgoods operation as a cash flow source. Mr McKenzie said that, while the BIL purchase “looks strange from the outside,” his company was happy to “have Brierley’s aboard.” The BIL chief executive, Mr Paul Collins, said he has “no intentions for the Hellaby holding at this stage.” “With our 75 per cent holding in Huttons, it was not as though the shares were far from us anyway,” he said. BIL has no intention of following its normal practice of applying to the Commerce Commission to lift its holding above 40 per cent. BIL made the $9.5M purchase at 200 c a share. Hellaby shares are trading at 275 c.