Murray & Roberts rapped over the knuckles
The construction giant is still trying to fend off the hostile takeover bid by Aton, but the authorities aren’t impressed
The Takeover Special Committee (TSC), which considers appeals of decisions by the Takeover Regulation Panel (TRP), has issued only four rulings in 2018. Three of them have involved the hostile bid for control of Murray & Roberts (M&R) by German engineering group Aton. This may explain the slightly weary note in the most recent of those rulings. "This is the latest episode in the long-running dispute between Aton … and the board … of Murray & Roberts," declares the TSC, launching what turns out to be scathing criticism of the robust efforts of the M&R independent board to fend off the German bid. The TSC was peeved by the "manner in which the independent board conducted itself". It was particularly irritated by the fact that the independent board did not inform the TSC of its proposed Aveng transaction back in May, when an earlier TSC was considering separate complaints by M&R and Aton. In May the first TSC ruled in support of M&R’s argument that Aton’s sale agreement with Allan Gray...
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