More fun and games at Minerva, the property company which has rejected a 50p a share bid from near 30% shareholder Nathan Kirsh.
At the company's annual meeting today Kirsh's bid vehicle KiFin used its stake to vote down the reappointment of Oliver Whitehead as Minerva's non-executive chairman.
But after the meeting, Minerva's board got together and immediately reappointed Whitehead. The company said 99.86% of independent shareholders had backed Whitehead, and it needed a strong chairman to be in place during the bid battle.
Minerva independent director John Matthews threw down the gauntlet:
The board is very disappointed by this deliberately disruptive behaviour by a shareholder that has made a bid for the company. We have decided to reappoint Oliver as chairman during the course of the unsolicited offer as it is critical that all shareholders' interests are protected.
Shares in Minerva - which this week revealed its net asset value had increased by nearly 10% since June to 95p - have slipped 1.5p to 62.5p.
Updated 16.00
Minerva has just announced the disposal of its Wigmore Street properties - as flagged - to Standard Life Investment Funds for £40.75m in cash, a 20% premium to its book value. It pointed out that this was higher than the increase shown by the property revaluation referred to above.
