Whitcoulls set for return to the NZX

Nick Stride

Friday 30th April 2004

If any confirmation was needed that Graeme Hart is one smart fella, it came last week.

Stationer and bookseller Whitcoulls, now bundled together with Australia's Angus & Robertson, got its fifth owner in 13 years when private equity firm Pacific Equity Partners paid Britain's WH Smith $134 million for its Australian and New Zealand assets.

Pacific Equity Partners is the company that floated Frucor after only two years' ownership and Vertex after only 20 months. If it stays true to form, investors can expect a stripped-down and and dressed-up stationer to be offered to them by 2006.

WH Smith bought the group from US Office Products for $126 million in 2001 so it can leave these shores with its tail held high.

But neither of those prices comes close to the $302 million Hart's Rank Group got for essentially the same assets back in 1996.

Rank bought Whitcoulls from Brierley Investments for $72.1 million in 1991 and added Angus & Robertson for $34 million two years later.

Rank was at that time a listed company with Hart the majority shareholder.

During 1996 he conducted a controversial and closely-fought clean-up of the minorities, selling Whitcoulls to USOP at what now looks like an outrageous price as soon as he had secured full ownership.

Or rather, he sold it to Blue Star Group, of which US Office Products was the majority shareholder; the other party paying up big was Blue Star executive chairman and minority owner Eric Watson, who had the sense to sell his stake while the going was good.

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