Forum Archive Index - September 2001

["G Stolwyk" <stolwyk@wave.co.nz>]

Thanks for raising this matter, David.

 

When I bought my original shares and checked their background, I was not aware that there were some 55 mill. shares under voluntary escrow till Oct.5, 2001.

 

It is probably no coincidence that the Annual meeting is on Oct. 3. Page 67 of the Annual report refers to this matter.

 

The shares reached $ 5.70 at one stage and I could not find a good reason for the fall to the current $ 4.40 ( at one stage $ 4.10 ).

 

 Even the DAD/ BCH merger should not have that made that much difference: as shown in my posts of Aug. 22 and Sept. 7, I prefer CLH.

 

At this stage, I don't know how many shares are still in voluntary escrow but I would guess that quite a few could have been sold at the much higher prices.

 

These shares were allocated arising from the reconstruction of capital prior to listing.

 

The largest holders are all Directors including the Founders. They hold a total of 52.9% of the 94.7 mill. shares issued by CLH sofar.

 

That equates with 50 mill. shares and presumably will be the bulk of the 55 mill. in  voluntary escrow.

 

These are intelligent men and rather than slowly dripfeeding any of them on the market, they would be able to place them whenever they want to.

 

Apparently, they may not be in a hurry to do so:

I have not referred to one Non Ex. Director on the Board, mr. Bo Goranson, aged 64.

 

He is the founder of Abak, one of Sweden's largest debt collection agencies.

 

He also formed the Intrum Justitia group in 1984 and built it into Europe's leading receivables management group with subsidiaries in 22 countries. ( I did mention that CLH has the strongest Board, I have seen for many years! ).

 

It is always possible that mr Goranson may be interested in a takeover of CLH at a later stage.  Or, will it be DAD/BCH?

 

Personnally, I don't think that too much emphasis should be put on that escrow as it was a voluntary anyway and any shares could have been sold at the then prevailing much higher prices since. CLH is a defensive stock and its price is already low, in my opinion. 

 

Gerry

PS: My post of 7 Sept. 2001 mentioned that the 4 dominant receivables companies in Australasia are only collecting $ 270 mill. revenue out of a total of $ 600 mill. revenue available. ( I forgot to add the word " mill." to $ 270 in that post).