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'Nobody's pulling the carpet out from under us' says Nuttall chief
Page 29
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• As forecast in CM last week, the shareholders of William Nuttall Transport are unlikely to accept the Dundee, Perth and London Securities bid of 45p per share. Mr Roy Leighton, chairman and managing director of Nuttall, told CM this week that the directors did not welcome the bid and would not be selling the shares "at a bargain basement price".
According to Mr Leighton the DPL takeover bid was initiated by the former chairman and managing director of the company, Mr Jim Wild, and DPL had claimed to have got 27 per cent of Nuttall's shareholders "in the bag" — without making any official approach to Nuttall.
Mr Leighton claimed this week that the shareholders who had been approached were not in possession of all of the facts and, now that they knew Nuttall's plans, they wished to revoke their agreements with DPL. Whether or not they would be able to do so would have to be settled by law, said Mr Leighton. The shareholders had now learned that the company had disposed of, or was disposing of, its loss-making facilities "and everyone in the company has his jacket off and we are all buckling in. Our shareholders have had a rough time. Shares which they purchased at 74p dropped to 39p and have now risen to 51p. They are unlikely to sell these shares for partly convertible loan stock, and certainly they would never agree to 51p per share".
In reply to a statement by the chairman of DPL that the Nuttall company was not making a profit, Mr Leighton said: "This is incorrect. Unaudited figures for the year ended March 1973 indicate that Nuttall traded profitably in the second six months and that this was achieved as a result of a return to material profitability in the latter part of that period".
He added that rationalization of resources had resulted in cost savings estimated at £88,000 a year:
Mr Leighton told CM that the next move in the takeover bid must come from DPL, who should make their offer to Nuttall in writing. Nuttall's directors had formed a committee which was ready to examine any substantial offer for the company but, said Mr Leighton, "we are doing much too well and the prospects are too bright for us to allow anyone to pull the carpet from under us at this stage".
Another DPL take-over
• Dundee, Perth and London Securities Group, through its subsidiary Transport and Warehousing Ltd, has agreed to buy E. Hull Ltd, of Bedford, for £160,000 in cash, it was announced last week.
The Hull company specializes in heavy haulage and waste disposal. Net asset value at June 30 1972 was £113,552 and net pre-tax profits for the year to that date were £40,230.