King holds firmly on to Dorchester Pacific crown

Wednesday 25th August 2004

Dorchester Pacific managing director Brent King left around 180 shareholders at the company's annual meeting in no doubt that he's staying as the boss.

King told the meeting yesterday that he is sick of the New Zealand culture and attitude where "we simply like to criticise, pull down and throw stones".

The comment follows his decision to sell a 15% stake to rival Bridgecorp, run by controversial 1980s high-flyer Rod Petricevic, taking that company's stake to 19.9%.

Chairman Murray Radford was reported at the time as saying the directors were surprised and the board had not had any inkling that King was considering reducing his stake. King said he was the only person who had had contact with Bridgecorp.

"The speed of the negotiations and settlement has been such that no plans or concept have been discussed," he said. "There is no master plan in place.

"I reiterate at this point in time there is simply nothing to consider or discuss. It is simply business as usual."

He confirmed he still held a substantial stake in Dorchester and had no intention of either leaving, or giving up his job at the top.

"I intend to continue to manage and drive this company so that all parties are able to benefit," King said.

King got $4.04 a share for his stake at a time when the stock was trading at just over $2.80. Radford made no further comment on King's selldown. Instead he focused on the result for the year where revenue was up 31% compared with the 20% increase in revenue in the previous year and profit after tax was up 50% to just over $6 million compared with the 8% last year.

Radford conceded the result was better because the company had offloaded a poorly performing funds management company. King announced two new initiatives - a credit card attached to Dorchester Finance's call account and the ability to exercise early the company's warrants.

He confirmed Dorchester Property Trust was being established to purchase the Auckland Club Tower.

A prospectus is expected to be registered within the next week. The issue will be for approximately 16 million units and all proceeds will be used to purchase the property. Anticipated investor returns are approximately 9%.

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