Permanent/Trust Company deal gets nod from court
The New South Wales Supreme Court has appoved the scheme of arrangement for the merger betweenPermanent Trusteesand Trust Company of Australia.
As a result Permanent has suspended its shares from quotation as of today and will seek to be delisted from the Australian Stock Exchange after the completion of the merger with the expected delisting not expected to occur until at least December 23.
The ruling follows a number of etxraordinary general meetings at the end of October of the shareholders of both group who in each case approved the merger of the groups in overwhelming numbers.
The court’s ruling took effect on Friday after the two groups lodged copies of the orders with the Australian Securities & Investments Commission (ASIC).
As part of the merger and transfer of Permanent shares to Trust Company, shares in the latter will be issued around December 17 to scheme members.
The two groups will pay out a dividend as part of the merger with Permanent set to pay a fully franked dividend of $1.00, made up of a final dividend of $0.20 and a special dividend of $0.80 while the Trust Company will pay out a fully franked interim special dividend of $0.11.
Both dividends are expected to be paid in mid to late December and the Trust Company's shares will trade on an "ex" dividend basis from the commencement of trading on Monday 9 December 2002.
The actions of the NSW Supreme Court follow on from that of the Queensland Parliament with made a number of legislative amendments to it Trustee Companies Act 1968 (Qld) to allow the enable merger to proceed.
AUTHOR
Jason Spits
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