PGG Wrightson appoints George Gould as MD

Friday 24th December 2010 1 Comment

Rural services firm PGG Wrightson, the subject of a partial takeover offer by Chinese agricultural companies Agria and New Hope Group, has appointed George Gould as group managing director.

A director of PGG Wrightson since January, Mr Gould was former managing director of Pyne Gould Guinness, where he led the merger of that company with Reid Farmers from 2001 to 2003, and had since maintained a broad range of farming and agribusiness interests, PGG Wrightson said.

Mr Gould is an independent director of a number of corporate entities. He will remain a director of Christchurch International Airport and Orion Group but resign from the board of Pyne Gould Corporation.

Pyne Gould today said it had signed a lock-up deed to sell its 18.3% stake in PGG Wrightson into Agria's bid. As it was a partial takeover offer, Pyne Gould's shares would be subject to scaling and may result in it continuing to own some of the shares.

Agria now holds 19.01% of PGG Wrightson and, with New Hope, is looking to lift its stake to 50.01%.

If the bid was successful PGG Wrightson would remain a New Zealand-based listed company, Agria said.

NZPA

Comments from our readers

On 29 December 2010 at 12:40 pm arty said:

Sounds like a set up at the expense of the long suffering PGC shareholders. Costing PGC sharehaolders 30m