Watchdog eyes notice timing

By PHILIPPA STEVENSON

The increasingly tangled web surrounding the PPCS shareholding in fellow meat company Richmond has snared the Securities Commission.

Commission general counsel Liam Mason said yesterday that the investment watchdog was looking into the timing of Tuesday's notice to the Stock Exchange by Active Equities. He said the matter was routine.

The notice required PPCS to buy the remaining shareholding in Richmond of Active's subsidiary, Hawkes Bay Meats, by next February 1.

It was posted within minutes of Richmond notifying the exchange that it had obtained an interim injunction preventing PPCS trading any of its interests in Richmond until a High Court case is heard in August.

The case - a combination of three separate proceedings filed by Richmond, PPCS, and a group of Richmond shareholders - will seek to establish the status of PPCS as a Richmond shareholder amid allegations it warehoused shares with Active Equities when it was forced to divest a 35 per cent stake in Richmond in mid-2000.

PPCS directly owns 16.7 per cent of Richmond, and is in the process of buying a further 35.8 per cent following the exercise of a put option by Active Equities on Tuesday.

Richmond chief executive John Loughlin said earlier that neither PPCS nor Active Equities had done anything to prevent the matter being resolved in court.