Kerr too busy to attend Pyne Gould AGM, focuses on Perpetual sale
Nov. 28 (BusinessDesk) – Pyne Gould Corp said its managing director and controlling shareholder George Kerr is too busy
closing the sale of wealth manager Perpetual Group to attend the company’s annual meeting in Auckland today.
Kerr’s Australasian Equity Partners Fund No. 1 owns 76 percent of Pyne Gould, having failed this year to take the
company private. He is currently overseas closing the deal, the company said in an update to the NZX today.
“Unfortunately I am unable to attend as we are working to a tight timeline to achieve a quality exit from Perpetual by
calendar year’s end,” Kerr is quoted as saying in the statement. “This is a major priority to preserve value for
shareholders.”
The annual shareholders’ meeting held at 2pm today on Level 17 of the AMP Centre in Auckland.
The shares last traded at 26 cents and have declined18 percent this year. Kerr paid 37 cents a share to take control of
the company, while warning that the difficult process of selling assets meant Pyne Gould was no longer a generator of
dividend income.
Selling Perpetual will leave Pyne Gould with no direct operating businesses in New Zealand. Its Torchlight Investment
Group owns 19.7 percent of investor Torchlight Fund 1, which runs until 2019, and Torchlight Fund 2, which holds the
remaining bad loans carved off when Marac Finance was sold into Heartland New Zealand.
Pyne Gould’s Torchlight Securities owns 27 percent of Equity Partners Infrastructure Company No. 1 which in turn owns 17
percent of UK motorway services company Moto International Holdings
(BusinessDesk)