Dorchester shareholders to reduce holdings

A director of finance company Dorchester Pacific has agreed to slightly reduce his holdings in the firm, ahead of an expected lively annual meeting in Auckland today.

The meeting is attracting unusual levels of interest as Bridgecorp managing director Rod Petricevic, Shareholders' Association chairman Bruce Sheppard, and former Dorchester managing director Brent King seek to get onto the board.

Mr Petricevic has said Dorchester should be much more profitable.

Today the Takeovers Panel said Dorchester director Robert Carter, along with Hugh Green Investments, of which he is also a director, held 20.13 per cent of the voting rights in Dorchester.

For the purposes of the Takeovers Code, Mr Carter and Hugh Green Investments were associates.

As a result they had agreed to reduce their combined holdings to the 20 per cent level required by the code.

Hugh Green Investments would sell 27,141 shares and Mr Carter 10,000 shares to non-associated parties by August 29, the panel said.

The two had also undertaken not to exercise voting rights attached to those shares before they were sold.

- NZPA