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Turners and Growers, the fruit and produce company controlled by Sir Ron Brierley's Guinness Peat Group, is expected to make a takeover for kiwifruit exporter Kerifresh, scooping up 21.2 per cent of the company in an auction yesterday.
Turners and Growers is understood to have lodged a winning bid of $2.10 a share just half an hour before the six-day auction for the holding ordered by the Takeovers Panel closed yesterday, BusinessDay reported.
The auction was carried out by ABN Amro Craigs.
In a statement released to media yesterday Hamish McHardy of Sundry Investments Ltd said his company bid $2 a share but was overbid by Turners and Growers' commitment to make a full takeover offer at a price of $2.10 per share.
The successful bid brings Turners and Growers' holding in Kerifresh to 25.6 per cent.
Chairman Tony Gibbs said he was "very confident" his company would get to the 50.01 per cent needed to take control of Kerifresh. A full takeover bid would be launched "very soon" at $2.10 a share, BusinessDay reported.
Turners and Growers announced on October 1 that it was making a takeover offer at $2 a share. But on the same day, Mr Gibbs laid a complaint with the Takeovers Panel alleging breaches of the takeovers code by various Kerifresh shareholders, including managing director Alan Thompson.
The panel ruled that the code had been breached and ordered the auction. The shares sold were mostly held by father and son investors Hamish and Jonathan McHardy, with some held by Mr Thompson and his wife Helen.
Kerikeri-based Kerifresh was set up in 1992. Last year it produced lemons, mandarins and more than 600,000 trays of kiwifruit. Most of the produce is exported.
M r McHardy said he did not accept the correctness of the panel's findings against him but he agreed to the solution suggested by the Takeovers Panel as an alternative to the panel taking the matter to the High Court.
The panel's decision to appoint a broker to auction the shares, which could only be re-acquired if the original holders made a successful takeover, ensured that Kerifresh shareholders received a full takeover offer.
Hamish McHardy will consider the Turners and Growers' offer for the remainder of his shareholding once it is received.
- NZPA
