By NZPA
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Friday 15th April 2005 |
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The offer is scheduled to open on April 27, and close on 3 June.
The Urbus board is recommending shareholders accept the offer.
Under the offer Urbus shareholders and convertible noteholders would receive 0.980 ING units for every one Urbus share or convertible note held.
The boards of both ING and Urbus have said they think a merged entity would provide a number of benefits for Urbus security holders.
Among those would be higher gross earnings, a larger more diversified property portfolio, and greater liquidity of their interests on the NZSX.
The companies said in a statement that broader benefits of the deal included costs savings for the combined group, greater investment opportunities and a simplified capital structure.
If the offer is successful, Urbus will become a company wholly owned by ING, and the holders of Urbus securities will become unit-holders in ING.
Urbus today also declared a gross final dividend for the year ended March 31 of 4.6 cents per share, up from 4.5 cents last year.
This takes the Urbus gross full-year dividend paid to 9.2 cents per share (9c last year).
ING has yet to finalise its dividend for the March quarter but said its full-year gross dividend would not be more than 2.775c, compared with 10.8c the previous year.
Shares in Urbus were up 5c at $1.10 in early afternoon trading today, while ING was unchanged at $1.17.
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