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- Shareholders in Kina Securities (KSL) have overwhelmingly voted in favour of the company’s $420 million takeover of Westpac’s (WBC) Pacific businesses
- Kina experienced some technical difficulties at today’s extraordinary general meeting (EGM) when its share registrar had a global outage
- While shareholders couldn’t see or hear what was happening at the webinar, they still voted 99.94 per cent in favour of the Westpac acquisitions
- Similar majorities approved Kina’s plan to raise funds to support the buy
- While Kina said in the spirit of good governance it will schedule a new meeting as soon as possible, the bank did not specify if a re-vote will be needed when shareholders have a chance to experience the full webinar
- Kina and Westpac announced the sale in December 2020, with Kina to take control of Westpac’s Papua New Guinea and Fiji assets
- Shares in Kina Securities closed a slight 1.96 per cent lower today at $1 per share
Shareholders in Kina Securities (KSL) have overwhelmingly voted in favour of the company’s $420 million takeover of Westpac’s (WBC) Pacific businesses.
Despite some technical difficulties at today’s online extraordinary general meeting (EGM), Kina said 99.94 per cent of all shareholders votes cast were in favour of the acquisition, with similar majorities voting in favour of the company raising funds to support the purchase.
However, Kina has re-scheduled its extraordinary general meeting (EGM) due to major issues with the video and audio quality of today’s webcast.
The bank said its share registrar, Link Market Services, experienced a global outage with one of its third-party services providers at the very time Kina’s EGM was scheduled, meaning shareholders couldn’t see or hear what was going on.
Nevertheless, shareholders were still able to lodge their votes online for or against the Westpac acquisition.
While Kina said in the spirit of good governance it will schedule a new meeting as soon as possible, the bank did not specify if a re-vote will be needed when shareholders have a chance to experience the full webinar.
The Westpac Pacific buyout
Kina and Westpac announced in December 2020 that Australia’s oldest bank was officially divesting its Fiji and Papua New Guinea (PNG) assets and exiting out of the Pacific region.
It was the end of an era for Westpac, which is also the older bank in both Fiji and PNG.
Kina, which is paying around $420 million for the assets, is currently the second-biggest bank in Papua New Guinea, but the Westpac takeover will bump up its PNG customer base from 165,000 to over 500,000.
It also increases Kina’s customer base in Fiji by about 319,000 people.
Kina shares spiked over 13 per cent the day the West Pacific purchases were announced and have continued to steadily climb since.
Today, shares in KSL closed a slight 1.96 per cent lower at $1 per share. The company has a $285.79 million market cap.
