The Shareholders' Association has slammed Abano Healthcare's disaffected shareholders, saying a number of their claims are directly contradicted by documentary evidence.
Photo: AFP
Association chairman John Hawkins said his organisation firmly backed Abano chairman Trevor Janes and supported him remaining in office.
Former Abano director, Peter Hutson, and James Reeves, who own 18.5 percent of Abano between them, have requisitioned a special meeting to vote on ousting Mr Janes.
Mr Hawkins said his association would be writing to all Abano's shareholders to urge them to vote against Mr Janes being sacked.
"There are a number of pieces of information that are either in the public arena or that we have been made privy to, and we have found them to be different to other documentary evidence that we have," he said.
Mr Hutson had been critical about the performance of Abano's dental division but the association believed more attention should be paid to the performance of the audiology business - which Mr Hutson headed until recently.
"The shareholders would like to see more out of the dental side of it. It is in a building phase, so it's facing a lot of upfront costs, and it takes a while for profitability to start to flow through," Mr Hawkins said.
"The company is well aware of that situation and I think has explained it to shareholders in the past."
However, he pointed out that the audiology side had never made any profit, despite a "huge" amount of money being spent on it.
Mr Hutson and Mr Reeves were not available for an interview.
However, in a statement they accused the Shareholders Association of being part of Abano's public relations campaign.
They also repeated their accusations that Abano was trying to delay the special meeting and said Mr Janes was showing a blatant disregard for fair process which, they claimed, seriously undermined the integrity of the special meeting.
Abano is waiting for the stock exchange to approve the notice of meeting; the NZX has up to 10 working days to do so.
Abano shares fell 3 cents to $7 on Friday.
