Final Coopers V Lion Nathan

[tangent]

Coopers dismisses Lion Nathan

Coopers shareholders have effectively stopped Lion Nathan's takeover bid for the Adelaide brewer. They voted overwhelmingly to remove Lion Nathan from the Coopers constitution at this morning's extraordinary general meeting at Coopers Brewery. The shareholders voted 1,153,519 to 81,293 - or 93.42 per cent to 6.58 per cent of the shares cast - to remove references to Lion Nathan from the Coopers constitution. A vote of 75 per cent was required to carry the motion. An overwhelming 97 per cent of shares eligible to vote participated in the meeting. "It doesn't get much more decisive than this," said managing director Tim Cooper. "The shareholders have spoken and have said to Lion Nathan: 'Go away.'" The Cooper brothers celebrated with shareholders today, riding atop a Coopers cart drawn by their famous Clydesdale team, with a sign attached to the back of the cart: "Sam & Jacob say 'Not For Sale'"

Independant Weekly e-mail

Drinking a Sparkles to Celebrate :super: makes me proud to be a South Aussie

Well done to all involved!

 

[Jye]

Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks Lion Nathan

This is good news

 

[tangent]

those 81,293 people are obviously crownie drinkers! (from out of state)

 

[Samwise Gamgee]

Booyah!!!

 

[Mr Bond]

I guess that clears the way for them to wait for a decent offer from an overseas consortium to become a major 3rd brewing force in the australasian region.No sell out yet,but I'm sure there is one coming,just to slap all the parochialists in the face.

 

[timmy]

those 81,293 people are obviously crownie drinkers! (from out of state)

[post="97575"][/post]​

Don't you mean TED drinkers?

 

[spog]

bloody good one that ! :beer: but. i cant hear the fat lady singing yet. i sure as hell hope LN have got the message and bugger off, go coopers :beerbang:

 

[big d]

cheers for that tangent.ive been wondering how the take over has been shaping up.good to see coopers winning the day.

cheers
big d

 

[mje1980]

Good to hear!, tell em to get fu$%ed! and sell their fizzy alcoholic water somewhere else!!.

 

[delboy]

YEEEEEEEEHAAAAA (cowboy emotion)

this means that the LION won't raw now for a bit .i herd on the grapevine they only wanted Coopers so they could learn how to make beer any how :lol:


Maybe Woolies will buy it now I hear they are buying up breweries in Europe and Mexico (BITBERGER, SOL )?

NAAAAAAAAAH I think the boys at the budwieser brewery will be happy with that.

DELBOY :beer:

 

[bradmcm]

Good to hear!, tell em to get fu$%ed! and sell their fizzy alcoholic water somewhere else!!.

[post="97712"][/post]​

Yeah! Let's get back to drinking the Mild Ale, Premium Lager, Heritage Premium and Birell!

 

[bradmcm]

It's not a case of big bully multinational vs happy little regional brewer.
If I were a shareholder in Coopers I would be mightily pissed off with the proceedings. Unless I was on the board then I would be lighting my cigars with $100 notes.


How about people read Bryan Frith's articles in the Australian
Coopers Article 25/11/05

Coopers Article 17/11/05

Coopers 9/12/05

C'mon. You can't sell your property to who you want to and the Coopers
family get first dibs at a price THEY set???

An analogy would be if I bought a 2005 Commodore SV6.
I don't want it anymore so I place an ad in the paper. "SV6 for sale"
The guy up the road says I'll buy it off you for $30,000. I say, "lovely, deal"
GM Holden turn around and say, nup, we'll buy it back and
we'll give you $4000 for it (we reckon that's fair!) and now you have put it up for sale you can't withdraw it from sale. Thankyouverymuchpleasuredoingbusiness - handoverthekeys.

That's why I wont have anything to do with Coopers.

 

[Aaron]

I have to agree with Brad to an extent here. Cooper's are just another public company. They may have a small shareholder base but they are a public company, just like Lion Nathan. They have reduced the value to their shareholders.

I personally think we will see the likes of InBev snatch them up in the not too distant future.

 

[Beerpig]

They are not a publicly listed company

Cheers

 

[Aaron]

They are not a publicly listed company

Cheers

[post="97758"][/post]​

I never said they were. They are a public company. They are not listed.

 

[user 384]

They are not a publicly listed company

Cheers

[post="97758"][/post]​

No they're not publicly listed, but they're still a public company with shareholders and a board of directors who are supposed to independently act in the interest of shareholders. The directors have failed in this regard and have merely protected their own interests.

Consider that Lion Nathan offered $310 per share. Most shareholders have owned their shares prior to 1985 when the capital gains tax laws were introduced, so would have to pay no CGT. A very nice return on your investment if you choose to sell.

On the other hand we have Coopers offering only $260. Already this is $50 less. Then take into account that Coopers' buy back scheme is only for 15% of the capital, so not everyone will be able to take up this offer. Further the Coopers offer is $2 capital and $258 fully franked dividend. Now for anyone over 30% tax bracket, they will end up paying tax. If you are on the top tax bracket of 48.5% you will pay $68.19, so you will only receive $191.81 per share, $118. 19 or 38% less than the Lion Nathan offer.

Further it could be much higher depending on what the tax office assesses as the tax value of Coopers shares (the value if there were no buyback). If the tax value is higher than the buyback price, then the excess is added to the capital and taxable - in effect the holder would be taxed on proceeds which were not received.

Pure and simply the board of directors have failed their shareholders. They have used the company's constitution to restrict the trade of shares and shareholders are now unable to realise the highest price for their assests.

bradmcm is spot on with his analogy.

They're not a friendly family company.

MAH

 

[bradmcm]

The board should still act in the interest of the shareholders though.

I don't have a problem with Coopers fending off a take-over bid.
It's just the way the company manages the shares does not
seem fair to me.
As well as the spin that Coopers put on the whole deal.
They seem to have this 'roo-in-the-headlights and poor-little-Aussie-battler-not-quite-knowing-what-is-going-on angle that they have been playing. To me they seem quite the bully.

 

[Gough]

All fair enough points fellas, but how do we then explain the overwhelming voter turnout and the vote's result?? Is this just a case of people having the wool pulled over their eyes or is there more to it? Share capitalism is after all a very unlikely place for a 'feel-good' generated vote with no further substance wouldn't you agree??

I'm not having a go here and obviously unlike you fellas have only taken a passing interest in all this. I'm genuinely interested in your opinions in answer to my question though. Seems like a very interesting and unusual phenomenon if it is just 'brand-loyalty' coming in to play...

Shawn.

 

[Weizguy]

my 2 cents...

I saw an Interview with Dr Tim Cooper this morning where he suggested that the shareholders were all family members who decided to keep the family business out of the hands of the big Brewers.

I can get behind that concept, whether it is the case here or not.

 

[mje1980]

So far, everythin i've read ( in passing ) about bigger brewers, breweries,multinational cats piss marketers taking over smaller brewers has almost always meant that the beer slowly ends up becoming bland and cost driven. That's why im happy it didn't go ahead. Im not saying that it couldnt happen with coopers running the show, but the odds are a lot better. Although, im not really looking at it from a shareholders point of view, so those points about shareholders are valid.

In my opinion, companies like cub and tooheys etc dont think of their product as beer, just a mass produced, mass marketed cash cow, which is fair enough. But, i think the smaller guys like coopers etc are a bit more balanced between cash, and also a good beer.


But, anyway, i know little about shares, and little about brewries, and thats just my .02c.