Pyne Gould Corp said its managing director and controlling shareholder George Kerr is too busy closing the sale of wealth manager Perpetual Group to attend the company's annual meeting in Auckland today.
Kerr's Australasian Equity Partners Fund No. 1 owns 76 per cent of Pyne Gould, having failed this year to take the company private. He is currently overseas closing the deal, the company said in an update to the NZX today.
"Unfortunately I am unable to attend as we are working to a tight timeline to achieve a quality exit from Perpetual by calendar year's end," Kerr is quoted as saying in the statement. "This is a major priority to preserve value for shareholders."
The annual shareholders' meeting held at 2pm today on Level 17 of the AMP Centre in Auckland.
The shares last traded at 26 cents and have declined18 per cent this year. Kerr paid 37 cents a share to take control of the company, while warning that the difficult process of selling assets meant Pyne Gould was no longer a generator of dividend income.
