COG not giving up the fight for CML
Consolidated Operations Group continues to push its plan to merge with finance company CML Group, despite CML's support for rival suitor Scottish Pacific.Following Monday's announcement that the CML board had terminated a scheme of implementation agreement with COG and entered into a deed with Scottish Pacific, which made a higher offer, there was a flurry of activity yesterday.First, CML announced that the Federal Court had made orders cancelling a meeting of CML shareholders in respect of the proposed scheme of arrangement with COG.COG responded with an announcement saying it disputed CML's entitlement to terminate the agreement between the two parties.It also revealed that it had put a revised offer to CML, matching Scottish Pacific's offer of 57 cents a share, with consideration a mix of cash and scrip, plus a three cents a share special dividend.It said: "As of last week COG was negotiating details of the COG proposal with CML in good faith and had expected, on the strength of representations made to CML, to come to an agreement shortly."Instead, CML purported to terminate the agreement with COG and entered into the deed with Scottish Pacific, which contains an all-cash offer with the same value as the implied value of COG's revised proposal, but which is conditional on, amongst other things, FIRB approval and the ACCC not intervening or seeking to prevent the transaction."COG also said it would not vote its 17.4 per cent CML shareholding in favour of the Scottish Pacific scheme.