Executive Summary: December 10, 2009
By Scott Rochfort | smh.com.au | 10 December
The powerhouse of the Warrnambool dairy sector, Warrnambool Cheese & Butter, has caught the attention of the ASX's please explain department for a second day running.
One day after confirming it received a takeover offer when it had to explain a coincidental 8 per cent surge in its share price on Monday, Warrnambool Cheese has argued the ''unsolicited confidential non-binding conditional indicative proposal'' was immaterial to its share price.
This was obviously shown when its shares surged another 20 per cent on Tuesday when it explained it did not like the offer.
''The company does not consider the proposal material to price and value of the company's securities because the company considers the proposal to be inadequate and is not progressing it,'' it reasoned yesterday. Obviously things operate differently in Warrnambool. Shares in the company rose another 5 per cent yesterday.
KROK TO STAY
Maxim Krok's summer holiday plans have been disrupted after the Federal Court dismissed his request for his grilling by tax officials to be put off until next year.
The South African-born casino and pharmaceutical heir had asked for the questioning to be rescheduled from December 16 until after February 22. The Tax Office had even offered to accommodate his travel plans and grill him before his trip.
It has audited Krok's tax records for the past nine years and is ''seeking information from offshore''. Krok's legal team had argued that he had flights booked to return to Johannesburg next week with his two daughters.
''He has two teenage daughters, aged 13 and 15 … he doesn't want to pack them off on an international flight to Johannesburg [by themselves]'', Krok's barrister told the court. The Tax Office says it will need at least seven hours to talk through his tax affairs.
CHILD'S PLAY
GoodStart, the syndicate of not-for-profit organisations that has purchased the remaining 705 ABC Learning centres, is not entirely free of money-making types.
The GoodStart syndicate, which includes Social Ventures Australia (SVA), Mission Australia, the Benevolent Society and the Brotherhood of St Laurence, has pledged to run ABC as a not-for-profit business.
GoodStart's chairman is Robin Crawford, of Point Piper, a founding director of Macquarie Bank who has since developed a strong social conscience. He is also the chairman of the Sydney Cancer Centre Foundation and a former director of the Autistic Children's Association and Clean Up Australia. Crawford has even chipped in some of his own money for the venture.
The chairman of the SVA Capital Fund is the Colonial First State founder and former Challenger boss Chris Cuffe. Mission Australia's chief executive, Toby Hall, started his career in Britain at the investment bank Salomon Brothers. The Benevolent Society's chief executive, Richard Spencer, worked as a corporate lawyer for Clayton Utz and was a senior manager with Pioneer International and Rio Tinto.
CHINESE MOVE
The collapse of ABC Learning has not deterred other profit-driven entrepreneurs from thinking there is still investor appetite in listed kiddie-care companies. Xiaoxiao Education, an operator of nine childcare centres and an art school in China's Zhejiang province, wants to raise up to $10 million for its listing on the ASX.
''I believe Xiaoxiao Education is well positioned to lead the private preschool education market in China,'' remarks the group's chief executive, Tong Yongrong, in the company's prospectus.
The company, which wants to expand into other Chinese cities, has hired some Australians to its board who seem to have a good understanding of childcare. One of its directors is Roger Smeed , who is a former chief executive of the Victorian Casino Control Authority and director of the listed electronic mahjong table maker Treyo Leisure.
Xiaoxiao highlights one of its investment risks as being its lack of liability insurance. ''In the event of onsite food poisoning, personal injuries, fires or other accidents suffered by children or other people, Xiaoxiao China could potentially face claims alleging that it was negligent, provided inadequate supervision or was otherwise liable for the injuries,'' its prospectus says.
HELPFUL HINTS
Xiaoxiao offers some useful child-raising tips on its website. It recommends the parents of three- to four-year-olds provide problem-solving tasks and even offer their children the chance to make their own choices. Xiaoxiao notes children can be crude at this stage of life. ''Some words such as 'Stinky ass', 'feces' [sic], 'kill you', 'kicked the bucket' are always said by the children at this age though these words sound terrible and not civilised,'' it says.
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First published by Smh.com.au on December 10 2009
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