Kinghorns stick with RHG rump
Founder of the former Rams Home Loans, John Kinghorn, and his son Geoffrey will maintain most of their stake in the remnant of the company once the firm returns the bulk of its net assets to shareholders and delists from the Australian Securities Exchange.John Kinghorn, the executive chair of the company now known as RHG, will not sell any of his 11.6 per cent stake in the company for the share buyback proposed by the firm. Geoffrey Kinghorn, a director of RHG, will sell at most five percentage points of his 12.1 per cent stake in the firm.RHG proposes to buy back shares for one cent each and to pay a dividend of 87 cents per share, with the dividend partly franked.The company says it will delist from the ASX following the buyback.The latter plan may force the hand of shareholders weighing up the merits of accepting the offer of 88 cents for shares that have changed hands for more than $1 for the last month, and have traded at or above the level proposed for the buyback since RHG's board announced the buyback plan in November.RHG estimated its net assets per share at A$1.16 as of the end of 2010, though this declines to 91 cents per share once allowance is made for impaired assets.In a report included with the notice of meeting, Deloitte Corporate valued RHG at between 96 cents and $1.31 a share "on a control basis".Deloitte wrote that not participating in the buyback "could be significantly value accretive to shareholders".John Kinghorn, in the introduction to the notice of meeting called to approve the buyback, rubbished the Deloitte valuation, which he said relied on assumptions that are "theoretical [and] in my opinion neither realistic nor commercial".Kinghorn noted that Deloitte assumed RHG would be able to sell its mortgage book in 2015. RHG tried and failed to sell its $4.4 billion mortgage book in late 2010, after a "worldwide search [and we] were unable to locate a willing buyer of the mortgage book at any price," Kinghorn wrote.Formerly Rams Home Loans, the funding model and thus business model of the company foundered once the credit crunch struck in August 2007, only weeks after the firm listed on the ASX. The firm sold the Rams brand to Westpac in early 2008 but continues to manage the back book of loans.