Mating ‘auction’ bid up to 900c

Press, 25 February 1986, Page 21

Mating ‘auction’ bid up to 900c

By

ADRIAN BROKKING

The “Dutch auction” for Mating and Company is getting hot, with the bid price for the shares leapfrogging again — this time to 900 c a share.

This latest offer from Tauras Corporation, of Dunedin, came only four days after it matched a rival offer of 850 c from Messrs Sam and Tom Maling and Meadow Mushrooms, Ltd, an offer that has been recommended by the Maling directors.

The Tauras directors say that this recommendation appears to have been based on the premise that the acceptance threshold level in Tauras’ offer, of 90 per cent, could not be met because of acceptances alleged to be held by Meadow Mushrooms. However, in a statement issued yesterday, the chairman of Tauras Corporation, Mr Eion S. Edgar, a Dunedin sharebroker, said that his company’s offer documents clearly show that this threshold level could be waived.

Mr Edgar also said that he considered it curious that the Maling directors had made their recommendation despite repeated requests by Tauras to meet them to discuss the Tauras offer. As indicated in the documents, the revised offer of 850 c a share was "a holding position" for Tauras, Mr Edgar said. Tauras has approached all Maling shareholders by telegram urging them to refrain from accepting the Meadow Mushrooms offer.

The battle for control of Malings, really a battle

for the central city site, is actually a four-pronged affair. One of the parties, Mainstay Properties, is keeping in the background at present The other party is John W. Butterfield, Ltd, which posted on Friday formal offer documents, for its bid of 830 c a share, to the directors and shareholders. “As far as I am aware, this is the only formal bid extant,” Mr Butterfield said.

Maling and Company’s capital comprises 225,000 shares: at 830 c it values the company at $1,867,500; the “four M” bid is worth $1,912,500, while the latest Tauras bid has a total value of $2,025,000. The managing director of Meadow Mushrooms, Ltd, Mr Philip Burdon, M.P., said that he thought the recent developments were “very interesting.” Mr John Egden, a director of Mainstay Properties, said that the property company was still definitely interested, and he thought that the Maling directors were perfectly aware that Mainstay might lodge another bid.