It was greenmail, no matter how you look at it.
That’s the only way to describe the way 27-year-old Melbourne person, Nicholas Bolton who pushed for a meeting of unitholders in BrisConnections, then abandoned his course of action and grabbed the $4.5 million offered by Leighton Holdings’ subsidiary, Thiess John Holland.
The news of the cash grab ended the attempts to wind up BrisConnections that Mr Bolton, a self-styled activist, had been pushing for.
That had been expected to jeopardise the nation’s biggest infrastructure project but he did an about face – and netted himself $4.45 million in the process. He had paid just over $47,000 for his 18.4% stake.
His company Australian Style Investments sold voting rights for its 77 million securities in BrisConnections, the builder of the $4.8 billion Brisbane airport toll road, to Thiess-John Holland. Thiess-John Holland is a subsidiary of Leighton Holdings, the company that won the contract to build the road.
Leighton revealed its deal in this announcement to the ASX at 1.10 pm yesterday.
Earlier, Australian Style issued this statement filed at the ASX , urging unitholders to vote for the winding up and recapitalisation of the trust.
The meeting was told that Mr Bolton agreed to the sale last Wednesday: BrisConnections’ chairman, Trevor Rowe, reportedly told the meeting the company received a proxy form from Australian Style Investments on Saturday, which indicated it was voting against all the resolutions he proposed.
Bolton was engaged in a court battle against BrisConnections. He had pushed for a meeting of unit holders that had been expected to commence wind-up proceedings yesterday.
Instead he didn’t attend the meeting, his company voted against his motion and it then emerged that he had sold his shares to the constructors.
The resolution to wind up the BrisConnections trusts failed to secure 75% of votes needed for force the wind up.
Reports said discussion was heated and BrisConnections chairman, Trevor Rowe came in for criticism, but Mr Bolton’s move only attracted 36.6% of the votes, well short of the necessary number.
BrisConnections chairman Trevor Rowe attracted the most criticism due to his related role as chair of the government-owned Queensland Investment Corporation; the move attracted only 35.66 per cent support.
But the meeting was stunned when Mr Rowe later revealed that Mr Bolton’s 18.4% stake had been voted against his own resolution.
Mr Rowe revealed that Australian Style Investments had voted against all seven resolutions when its proxies were received on Saturday.
But obviously Leighton’s subsidiary waved a bigger cheque or its offer proved more seductive to Mr Bolton.
Jim Byrnes, the colourful Sydney business identity was prominent at the meeting. The company he represents, Brisbane Toll Roads owns 13% of BrisConnections.
At 9 am yesterday the Queensland Supreme Court allowed the meeting of unit holders to be held.
Justice Dutney of the Supreme Court of Queensland did not uphold any of the claims put by Macquarie Group, co-underwriter and financier of BrisConnections, or grant an injunction sought by the investment bank to stop a meeting of unit holders from proceeding.
His judgment took just two minutes, but Mr Bolton had already voted again his own motions and taken the money and run.
Now we can be assured that a deal will emerge in the next two weeks that will take Mr Bolton’s actual units from him.
The most logical way is some sort of privatisation by Macquarie and or Deutsche/Leighton.
All three would be criticised if they tried to force small unitholders to pay the $1 a security second payment, having done a deal with mr Bolton for his voting rights.
Mr Bolton was gloating in the media this morning and indicated the 77 million units were owned by Australian Style, but the $4.5 million was paid to another company.
