Lord Moyne's acquisition of majority of votes in Amer Group cancelled
In the beginning of June 1997 Castren & Snellman reported that Jonathan Bryan Guinness (Lord Moyne) had acquired the majority of the votes in Amer Group Ltd, a listed Finnish multi-branch firm, from four organisations mainly representing past and present students of the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration and the Helsinki University of Technology. However, on June 20, the sellers cancelled the agreement concerning the sale of the K shares (shares with voting power) due to problems with bank guarantees.
On June 26, the company announced that three of the total four owners of K shares would not restart negotiations concerning the sale. The fourth owner, the Student Union of the Helsinki School of Economics and Business Administration, announced that it intended to sell the majority of its K shares to Lord Moyne. On July 1, it was announced that Lord Moyne had agreed to acquire these shares. The approval concerned 275,000 K shares representing a total 12.5 per cent of the voting rights in Amer for a price of FIM 75.3 million. The three other owners of K shares and Amer itself were, however, entitled to redeem these shares should they wish to do so.
On July 29, the Board of Directors of Amer announced that it had decided to redeem the 275,000 K shares due to be sold to Lord Moyne. The Board will further propose to a extraordinary shareholders meeting, to be held in August, that all the company's K shares are exchanged into A shares (currently listed shares) at a ratio of 1:1.5.
Following the proposed changes, Amer will have only one class of shares, which will be listed. The voting power of the four owners of current K shares will be reduced from 90.15 per cent to 13.7 per cent.
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