Pacdun Sale Date
The Age
Saturday November 24, 2001
The sale of Pacific Dunlop's clothing, footwear and sporting goods division, Pacific Brands, is expected to be completed by November 30.
A PacDun spokesman said yesterday it was unlikely the deal would be completed sooner, even though it was believed terms had been agreed.
Parties in the sale were analysing in detail the contracts and various guarantees and warranties, he said.
While staff had been told of developments via e-mail from the directors, the spokesman denied that an e-mail declaring the Pacific Brands sale complete had been circulated.
The sale will reduce PacDun to a company that is the world's largest maker of surgical and protective gloves, through its Ansell division.
PacDun will also own a 50per cent stake in Goodyear joint venture South Pacific Tyres, until various put and call options are exercised in three years.
The business strategy after the sale of Pacific Brands has not been laid out as the group is still looking for a chief executive and some directors to fill the reconstituted board.
The spokesman said it was believed the board had assessed three candidates and a decision was likely after the sale.
PacDun has been negotiating the sale with CVC Asia Pacific, a Hong Kong-based arm of private equity giant CVC Capital Partners, based in London. A CVC group spokesman said yesterday CVC Asia Pacific had nothing to do with the financing or running of Amatek Holdings in Australia, which CVC Capital Partners bought for $965million in May 1998.
The spokesman would not say whether the sale of the Stramit steel roofing and building products company was under discussion, but he said CVC was ``not unhappy" with Amatek's progress.
He said that, since CVC acquired the Amatek group from BTR, it had repaid about $90million of the debt used to pay for the deal.
The Amatek group was re-leveraged this year when it took over Western Australian laminates and decorative surfaces company Wesfi.
© 2001 The Age
