Ex Telemedia Chairman says more litigations to come
A day after government announced it was nationalizing Telemedia; the debate is raging on the airwaves and in the board rooms. While the Prime Minister says the take over will end legal battles, outgoing Chairman of the Executive Committee, Dean Boyce, appearing on this morning’s edition of Open Your Eyes, says the contrary and that a lengthy legal battle for the full value of the company, can be expected.
Dean Boyce, Chair, Exec. Committee, Board of Directors, Telemedia
“We heard very late on Sunday that this was going to take place on Monday. So, we thought, well ok, if the accommodation agreement is going to be used as the excuse, we’ll give up the accommodation agreement and just take our chances. So, our lawyer sent in a notice and we’ve gotten rid of it entirely and that still doesn’t make any difference. The statement was made in the House that all these problems will go away, right, if we nationalize and we take the company over. Well, sure yeah, that’s gonna happen. It’s gonna be worst. You have, they will assess what they consider a fair value. We know what the fair value was in a certain environment, a reasonable in environment. This is not a stable environment; people will only pay a certain amount under these current conditions. So, we’re gonna be fighting for the difference and that’s gonna take as long as it takes. The people that buy B.T.L. are going to pay the lower price. Well, the ones that we fight for: the shareholders, the employees trust will fight for the difference, the Hayward trust I’m sure is going to fight for the difference they’ve already said. Let’s say we won, let’s say we make three hundred million and somebody says yeah it’s worth three hundred million US, the government has valued it at a hundred and fifty million or whatever they come up with. The difference between the two will have to be paid by government when it should have been paid for by whoever it was that was buying the company and an international operator will be prepared to pay a reasonable sum of money providing they’ve got a good platform.”
This evening Boyce handed over Telemedia to the new board in a smooth and courteous transition.
