Mackay mulls options

The board of Mackay Permanent Building Society yesterday finally responded to the takeover, or merger, proposed by Wide Bay Capricorn early last week.

Mackay said in a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange that it was in receipt of "preliminary approaches" from "interested parties including but not limited to" that from Wide Bay.

Whether the additional approaches preceded or followed the public offer from Wide Bay isn't clear.

Alternative proposals most likely would be from Bank of Queensland (which bought Pioneer Permanent late last year), perhaps Bendigo Bank (which took over First Australian Building Society, itself an amalgamation of several smaller Queensland entities) or other listed and unlisted building societies.