those short change letters

Above is a letter one of our directors received in the last couple of weeks, offering to buy his shares in Contact Energy--at a price about two thirds the current market price.  This was just one of a number of such letters sent out after Christmas.

As well as the low life crooks such as Eric Watson and Mark Hotchin who set out to deceive the elderly and vulnerable in one way, the scumbags in this case prey upon them in another way. The documents have language that creates a sense of urgency and are being sent at a time of the year when shareholders may be strapped for cash. Shareholders are provided with an amount due to them from the offer but there are no comparisons with the current market price. Also the letter authors seem to want to associate themselves with major insurer NZI by referring to themselves as "NZI Securities".

To check the current market price of something listed on the NZ Stock Exchange, you just need to go to its website.  But dear old mum may not realise that.

One of the people behind these letters is someone named Bernard Whimp, whose address is registered with the Companies office as 93 Liverpool St, Sydney  This scumbag has been in the news before. In 1997, a company dug up a carpark they had completed for him when he didn't pay for the job. Whimp was also banned as a company director from 2006 to 2010. Whimp had some success snapping up shares of DNZ Property Fund Ltd, buying 2.2 million shares at 60 cents apiece in August. Those shares most recently traded at $1.18; no doubt this encouraged him to try again.

All someone like Whimp needs to do is find a lawyer without a conscience (which isn't difficult) to ensure that what they do while immoral, isn't technically illegal.  Then all he needs is a "virtual serviced office", which is what the address given in the letter reproduced is (Servcorp). People like him as well as the lawyers who work for them deserve nothing but contempt.