Wynyard Directors' response to FMA Report

New Zealand, 30 November, 2018: The Directors of Wynyard welcome the FMA’s long over-due conclusion that no individuals breached the Financial Markets Conduct Act 2013. They also support the conclusion that the FMA would be unable to establish any breach of the fair dealing provisions.

It is however disappointing that it has taken over two years for this process, and the subsequent report, to be released and despite this extended period and the conduct of the board being a material focus, only two of the five independent directors, and none of the external professional advisors to the board, were interviewed by the FMA.

In terms of the conclusions presented, the Directors, and their advisors, reject any suggestion that there was not ongoing compliance with the Continuous Disclosure requirements.

Specifically the FMA have in their report identified as a matter for continuous disclosure, a reference to a cash flow deterioration within this period that in isolation would have had an impact of little more than a week on available cash. The Directors do not accept this FMA conclusion when considering this matter in isolation, nor in the context of the potential asset sales, progress towards closure of target contract(s), the Skipton facility and a potential capital raise which were in play at the time. The view of Directors has been supported by external advisors at the time, who have provided the same conclusion recently to the FMA in writing.

Changes were made to the board in June 2016 to restructure a distressed company that had raised $176m of shareholder money previously. During the period from June to October 2016 the board, external advisors, executives and the wider Wynyard team explored every available path to improve performance to secure a long term future. Despite those efforts, this did not eventuate which was not an outcome anyone intentionally desired or worked for.

The Directors thank the FMA for concluding this report which brings closure to this matter.

Ends.

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