Sec Comm orders Whimp to correct low ball offers

Friday 18th March 2011 3 Comments

The Securities Commission has today made orders against limited partnerships associated with Bernard Whimp.

The orders follow misleading offers made by the limited partnerships to buy shares in a number of listed companies.

They require the limited partnerships, through their general partner, Bernard Whimp, to send corrective statements to the shareholders to whom the offers were made.

Under the order the partnerships have to write to the shareholders because the original offer was misleading; that the offer appeared at first sight to be made at above the market value of the shares, but under the fine print the full payment would not be made for 10 years; and that the net present value of the offer is therefore much less than the nominal offer price.

The orders have been made for the following offers:

Carrington Securities LP - offer to buy shares in TrustPower
NZ Investment Securities LP - offer to buy shares in Vector
Chase Securities LP - offer to buy shares in Guinness Peat Group
Carlyle Securities LP - offer to buy shares in Contact Energy
Energy Securities LP - offer to buy shares in DNZ Property Group
Fairfield Securities LP - offer to buy shares in Fletcher Building

The Commission has also prohibited those limited partnerships, and other limited partnerships also associated with Whimp, from making unsolicited offers to buy securities in a way that is the same or substantially the same as the March 2011 offers.

The other limited partnerships subject to the prohibition are as follows: Cargill Securities LP Fairfield Securities LP Pearson Securities LP Powershares LP.

The Commission is also considering taking further action arising out of the misleading offers.

Comments from our readers

On 18 March 2011 at 6:43 pm Malcolm Cameron said:

Better late than Never

On 19 March 2011 at 11:25 am Ross Revell said:

Just a predator on the unwary should be banned from making these ridiculous offers

On 19 March 2011 at 11:31 am Ivan said:

The SC doing something. No it can't be right. Better just get back to wasting taxpayers money by just doing nothing about anything, even though eveything is happening in front of their noses.