SCOTTISH Provident chief investment manager Mr John Lawrie, who was publicly critical of the original DCC bid for Flogas, has criticised what he describes as "an unedifying rush to sell" by Flogas shareholders when DCC went into the market buying shares.
"DCC's initial offer to buy Flogas shares at 275p was greeted by an unedifying rush to sell, in some cases by holders who were tracked down well after normal office hours.
"It is extraordinary that deals were done in such haste without even the knowledge of what the directors representing those shareholders thought. As we now know, a more measured response would have served them better," stated Mr Lawrie.
Mr Lawrie said that the sequence of events in the DCC/ Flogas bid raised challenging questions for the Irish Stock Exchange and for Irish industrial companies and investing institutions. The apparent lack of support for Irish smaller companies was bad "because it makes it harder for them to raise fresh capital and enables them to do so only on terms that may put them at a competitive disadvantage".
It was also bad for the Irish financial community because it encouraged companies with the greatest growth prospects to look elsewhere for funding, says Mr Lawrie, citing Elan's use of the US market rather than the Irish market for funding and CBT's quotation on NASDAQ.
