Business
PF urges Shareholders to take no action re Offer
PF urges Shareholders to take no action re Offer.
About this update from Vanquis Banking Group Plc
[{"type":"text","content":"\n \nRNS Number : 2712W Provident Financial PLC 16 April 2019 \n\nNOT FOR RELEASE, PUBLICATION OR DISTRIBUTION, IN WHOLE OR IN PART, IN, INTO OR FROM ANY JURISDICTION WHERE TO DO SO WOULD CONSTITUTE A VIOLATION OF THE RELEVANT LAWS OR REGULATIONS OF SUCH JURISDICTION\n \nFOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE\n \n16 April 2019\nProvident Financial plc (\"Provident\")\nProvident urges Shareholders to take no action in respect of NSF's Offer\nSection 1: Chairman's letter to Provident Shareholders\nDear Shareholder,\nI am taking the unusual step of writing to you directly as part of today's announcement to share with you my personal views on the situation that Provident finds itself in.\nSince the Offer from NSF was announced, I have considered it our duty to ensure that shareholders have all the essential information that they need to make an informed and considered assessment of what they should do. \nOn 23 March, we published our response document which outlined our considerable concerns with the Offer and we followed this up with a further statement on 2 April which posed important questions to NSF, to which the Provident Board and I felt strongly you should have answers. \nWhile many of the questions put to NSF remain substantially unanswered, NSF finally acknowledged one of our questions last Friday evening and confirmed that certain of their dividends since 2015 have been in contravention of the Companies Act. They were described by NSF as \"technical infringements\" but the simple fact and truth of the matter is that they were unlawful. These unlawful distributions are a telling indictment of the competency of the NSF team and the weak oversight of their board and must call into question their ability to run a business some seven times larger than their own and one which includes a regulated bank. \nWhile NSF may now have accepted these failures under the Companies Act, through either indifference or arrogance or because they do not have the answers, they have failed to provide a comprehensive response to our other critical questions. I find this silence telling, particularly when it relates to straightforward questions regarding the future management of Vanquis Bank (which would be the largest business within the Enlarged Group), the implications of selling Moneybarn on the broader Provident Group or the genuine...