The company bidding for the New Zealand Rural Property Trust, Ross Investments, says it's in for the long haul and it doesn't plan to try and take over running the business.
"We are not going to disrupt or disturb the trust," Ross Investments general manager Robert Ross says.
Ross Investments, which is Australian based, has offered to buy units from investors at 75.5c each.
General manager Robert Ross says so far he has picked up between 150,000 and 200,000 units. Over the next 12-15 months he expects to buy between 2 mill and 3 mill, or about 8% of the units on issue.
Meanwhile, some investors are asking why hasn't the trust given them some direction on this offer.
NZRPT chief executive Tim Ryan says the rules applying to the fund in a situation like this are different to those faced by a company.
When an offer is made for a public company, such as though listed on the stock exchange, the directors give some sort of recommendation to shareholders.
Ryan says under a trust the management aren't allowed to make recommendations. Consequently the management company pointed out the bid was lower than the current market price, and that unitholders should get professional advice before making a decision.
It also told unitholders the net asset backing of each unit is somewhere nearer to $1.53 per unit.
As there is next to no liquidity in the secondary market, the Ross offer may be attractive to unitholders who want out of the fund.
Ryan says the offer from Ross wasn't unexpected because the company had been looking at the trust for some time.
"It came out of the blue but we were not surprised," he says.
Robert Ross says he has talked to the management from time to time, and earlier this year he considered making a bid of 60c a unit.
Ross says he is not aligned with any other unitholders and he has not talked to the NZRPT's biggest unitholder, Tainui controlled MDC Investments.
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