ROBERT Homes a Court and Alan Bond have both owned it in the past. Now a third West Australian entrepreneur, Seven Network chairman Kerry Stokes, is poised to own the NSW dealership for Caterpillar.
ROBERT Homes a Court and Alan Bond have both owned it in the past. Now a third West Australian entrepreneur, Seven Network chairman Kerry Stokes, is poised to own the NSW dealership for Caterpillar.
Mr Stokes’ Westrac Equipment, which already holds Caterpillar dealerships for WA and north-east China, is in advanced negotiations to buy NSW dealer Gough & Gilmour.
Gough & Gilmour principal Tony Gilmour has told WA Business News that the sale of his business to Westrac was the likely outcome of current negotiations.
“Our aim is to sell the business as a going concern,” Mr Gilmour said.
“We are expecting to finalise a satisfactory deal over the next few weeks or month or so.”
The acquisition would add to Mr Stokes’ extensive private business interests, held via Australian Capital Equity.
Mr Gilmour said the NSW business generated sales of $407 million in the past financial year.
Estimates of Westrac’s turnover range from $600 million up to $1 billion.
The current sale negotiations are the latest, and most promising, attempt by Mr Stokes to acquire the NSW dealership.
Mr Stokes was reported to have made a conditional offer of $182 million to buy the business in 2000 but the negotiations broke down.
Gough & Gilmour responded by launching legal action against Caterpillar, which had been agitating for change. A judgement handed down in June in the NSW Industrial Relations Commission gave Gough & Gilmour three months to sell the dealership to a party nominated by Caterpillar.
Mr Gilmour said he was satisfied with the outcome of the court proceedings, including the three-month sale period.
“We are treating this as a period to achieve a genuine sale,” he said.
“It has paved the way for a fair exit.”
If the sale negotiations are not successful, there is a 26-week notice period, after which Westrac would have the right to enter the NSW market in its own right.
Mr Gilmour said this would not be a logical outcome, since Gough & Gilmour would retain its physical assets but would lose the right to sell Caterpillar equipment.
Gough & Gilmour has 20 branches across NSW and about 700 staff.
The business, formerly known as Waugh & Josephson, was taken over by Robert Holmes a Court in 1987, then by the Bond Group.
During 1988 Caterpillar called for expressions of interest to form a new dealership for NSW and subsequently selected Mr Gilmour and his partner, Harcourt Gough.
In February 1989 the two men acquired Waugh & Josephson and began trading as Gough & Gilmour.
Westrac declined to comment on the status of negotiations.
