Hugh Green exits second listed asset with Turners sale; Maryanne Green leaves family firms

Friday 30th June 2017

Interests associated with the estate of the late philanthropist Hugh Green have sold out of a second listed asset, with the $47 million sale of a stake in Turners Automotive Group, while daughter Maryanne Green has ceased to be a shareholder in two family investment companies.

Hugh Green Investments sold about 14 million shares of Turners on market today at $3.35 apiece. A related company, the Hugh Green Trust-owned Castle Investments, sold its 27.2 percent stake in Hellaby Holdings as part of Bapcor Finance's takeover in February.

Members of Hugh Green's family didn't respond to requests for an interview but a shareholder notice to the Companies Office on June 22 showed Maryanne Green was removed as a shareholder of Hugh Green Investments, while siblings John Green and Frances Green were added to the register. That's a reversal of what happened in July 2015, when Maryanne was added as a shareholder and John and Frances were among shareholders that were removed.

While the participants didn't comment, the shareholding changes and asset sales may be part of a settlement between the warring family members. Last October, the Court of Appeal rejected an attempt by Frances and John to have Maryanne removed as trustee of the $400 million family property business, while declining to reinstate the siblings to the trust because of their intense hostility and attempts to remove an adopted grandchild as a beneficiary of the trust.

Frances and John had appealed a High Court ruling in 2015 that removed them as trustees of one of the trusts that control the business empire and reinstated Maryanne. That had followed Justice Helen Winkelmann's ruling that a new will penned by Hugh Green made just months before he died of cancer in July 2012 should be overturned. Justice Winkelmann found that Hugh Green had been vulnerable at the time the will was amended and John had instigated Maryanne's removal in 2012.

Maryanne also ceased to be a shareholder of Hugh Green Capital on June 22, while her siblings were added. Hugh Green Capital owns Castle Investments.

(BusinessDesk)

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