Londis shareholders will have the opportunity to discuss their options with the company’s advisors KPMG at a series of regional meetings this month.
The meetings, to be held at Bristol, Birmingham, Glasgow, London and Manchester, will not be attended by Londis’ management team or its board, said chairman Peter Williams.
“We want to ensure total transparency in respect of KPMG’s evaluation. KPMG will evaluate everything from floating Londis on the stock market to selling our company to a potential bidder, entering an alliance with another company or remaining as it is.”
KPMG is understood to have held meetings with at least seven interested parties regarding possible bids for Londis, including ones from Somerfield, Thresher Group, the Co-operative Group, Big Food Group, Musgrave, Bestway and Nisa-Today’s.
KPMG would not give names but said it had talked to “half a dozen serious punters” over a possible approach for Londis and had received expressions of interest from “several” other parties.
As part of its remit, it is also expected to scrutinise the actions and positions of the remaining non-executive directors and the controversial share options package. Its recommendations will be passed to the board by the end of February.
Separately, the Londis shareholders action group sent out a survey to all shareholders early this week in order to assess retailers’ views over recent events and get an idea of whether they wanted Londis to remain as a mutual.
Chairman Adrian Costain is still calling for the resignation of the remaining non-executive directors on the grounds they have not acted in the best interests of shareholders. He said: “KPMG have indicated that they will deal with corporate governance issues.”
Londis retailer Shahid Ali, based in Mintlaw, Aberdeenshire, said the priority was choosing a bidder with a credible chilled and fresh food offer.
He added: “If the board had just been a little less greedy in the first place, the deal probably would have gone through with barely a whisper. Now we are completely overloaded with information from all sides.”
Elaine Watson
The meetings, to be held at Bristol, Birmingham, Glasgow, London and Manchester, will not be attended by Londis’ management team or its board, said chairman Peter Williams.
“We want to ensure total transparency in respect of KPMG’s evaluation. KPMG will evaluate everything from floating Londis on the stock market to selling our company to a potential bidder, entering an alliance with another company or remaining as it is.”
KPMG is understood to have held meetings with at least seven interested parties regarding possible bids for Londis, including ones from Somerfield, Thresher Group, the Co-operative Group, Big Food Group, Musgrave, Bestway and Nisa-Today’s.
KPMG would not give names but said it had talked to “half a dozen serious punters” over a possible approach for Londis and had received expressions of interest from “several” other parties.
As part of its remit, it is also expected to scrutinise the actions and positions of the remaining non-executive directors and the controversial share options package. Its recommendations will be passed to the board by the end of February.
Separately, the Londis shareholders action group sent out a survey to all shareholders early this week in order to assess retailers’ views over recent events and get an idea of whether they wanted Londis to remain as a mutual.
Chairman Adrian Costain is still calling for the resignation of the remaining non-executive directors on the grounds they have not acted in the best interests of shareholders. He said: “KPMG have indicated that they will deal with corporate governance issues.”
Londis retailer Shahid Ali, based in Mintlaw, Aberdeenshire, said the priority was choosing a bidder with a credible chilled and fresh food offer.
He added: “If the board had just been a little less greedy in the first place, the deal probably would have gone through with barely a whisper. Now we are completely overloaded with information from all sides.”
Elaine Watson
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