possibly a clue to the selling?

GPG boosts full yr profit by 45 pct
Source: NZPA
Published: Wednesday March 3 2004, 8:45 AM

The Guinness Peat Group (GPG) lifted its December full year net profit by 45 percent to stg66.6 million ($NZ182.4 million) from stg45.9 million ($NZ125.7 million) the previous year.

Sir Ron Brierley's London-based investment company's gross profit was stg129.9 million, up from stg89.5 million.

Group turnover was stg552.9 million up from stg514.8 million.

The company's shares have traded between $1.28 and $2.00 over the past 12 months in New Zealand where many of its assets are held.

Sir Ron said the group's main achievement for the year was the takeover of the world's largest industrial thread company, the UK-based Coats Plc for stg80 million.

The manufacturer's net contribution to GPG's result was stg12.7 million, despite flat trading conditions.

GPG has had an active year in New Zealand, selling off its stake in Turners Auctions and controversially upping its holding in Tower.

In May 2003 GPG reduced its stake in Turners Auctions from 38.78 percent to 19.99 percent for a stg4 million profit, before exiting the company completely in November for a further stg7.4 million.

More controversially, the company increased its holding in Tower after acting as the main underwriter for a $210.8 million capital raising in July last year.

GPG gained 22.35 million Tower shares through the underwriting and was required to sell 6.75 million of these within six months.

Rather than selling to an unrelated party, as expected, GPG opted to sell the shares to a subsidiary.

GPG now has a 17.75 percent stake in Tower while its subsidiary has 1.6 percent.

GPG will pay a 1 pence dividend on May 17.

A 0.91 pence interim dividend was paid in 2002, but there was no final dividend for the full-year.

Although the company said in its 2002 annual report it would look at offering convertible loan notes to shareholders, this idea was not followed through after a disappointing take-up for last year's issue.