Allan Gray adds weight to Harmony`s offer
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Resources Editor
HARMONY Gold`s bid for Gold Fields received a huge boost yesterday when its second-largest shareholder, Allan Gray,
pledged its support for the R43,9bn all-stock offer to take over Gold Fields.
Allan Gray, which owns 14% of Harmony, would support the offer when shareholders voted on Friday, Sandy McGregor, a
director at Allan Gray in Cape Town, said yesterday. `We are recommending to clients that they support all the resolutions,
including the increase in capital,` McGregor said.
Harmony director Ferdi Dippenaar said he was `extremely pleased` at the news that Allan Gray would support the bid for
Gold Fields.
`The fact that our largest shareholder African Rainbow Minerals and Allan Gray support this means that they see value in the
offer. I am growing in confidence that the required majority of Harmony shareholders will back the bid,` he said.
The shareholders will be asked to back the issuing of new shares to fund Harmony`s hostile takeover of Gold Fields.
Gold Fields tried yesterday to undermine the credibility of Harmony by suggesting there were discrepancies in the statement of
its gold reserves.
Dippenaar branded the Gold Fields charge a `red herring`, saying that reserve levels changed regularly due to
the mining of assets, the purchase or sale of assets and the writing off of assets.
Both sides are awaiting the outcome of a series of legal challenges to the Harmony bid, which have been tabled by Gold Fields
— both in SA and in the US.
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