NatBlood to list third subsidiary

Press, 12 February 1986, Page 38

NatBlood to list third subsidiary

PA Wellington National Bloodstock Corporation, Ltd, plans to list a third subsidiary on the Stock Exchange after the merger of Vitamin Supplies (Pty), Ltd, its 100 per cent-owned Australian health food company, with New Zealand’s Verona Holdings, Ltd. The merger would take place soon, according to a joint statement yesterday from National Bloodstock’s chairman, Mr David Phillips, and Verona’s managing director, Mr Tony Falkenstein. Vitamin Supplies is one of the largest health food companies in Australia. Before forming Verona Holdings, Mr Falkenstein was managing director of OHL Corporation, Ltd, and during the three years in that position the share price of OHL increased ten-fold, as a result of the company moving from a loss position to a net

profit in excess of $1 million. Also under his management OHL won the inaugural Television New Zealand marketing award for the launch of Le Specs. Verona Holdings won another marketing award with its launch of one of its products, Zee Watch. Early this year Verona and Mr Falkenstein undertook consulting work for National Bloodstock’s recently acquired health food subsidiary, Vitamin Supplies. Since then a major restructuring has been programmed aiming at giving Vitamin Supplies long term profit growth. From yesterday, Mr Falkenstein was officially appointed a director and the managing director of the Vitamin Supplies. Mr Phillips said he foresaw an excellent growth in the health

and wholefood markets. After the merger with Verona, Vitamin Supplies would still remain a subsidiary of the National Bloodstock group. However, moves would soon be made to separately list the Vitamin SuppliesVerona group. National Bloodstock shareholders will be allocated priority rights to shares in the health food subsidiary in a similar way to rights they obtained for the public listing of both previous National Bloodstock subsidiaries, Pacer Corporation, Ltd, and Redvale Standardbreds, Ltd. Furuther details of these plans would be announced within the next four weeks, he said.