Hanover Finance Chairman David Henry has said it is unlikely the rumoured 'well known and trusted' alternative bidder for Hanover Finance will make a bid. This alternative bidder is now likely to wait for Allied Farmers' bid to be successful and then take a stake in Allied Farmers itself, Henry said. Hanover Finance is expected to release an independent experts report for investors early next week and a meeting to vote on the Allied Farmers bid will be held at 10.30am on December 16 in Auckland. Here is the full statement below from Hanover.

Hanover today confirmed it had only received the Allied Farmers Proposal for Hanover and United Finance investors. We have not received an offer from any other party. Chairman, David Henry, said that Allied Farmers has done extensive due diligence investigations, and that Hanover was committed to take the Allied Farmers Proposal to Hanover investors, at meetings of investors to be held in Auckland at 10.30am on 16th December. The merits of the proposal have been evaluated in an independent expert report produced for investors by Grant Samuel, which is to be sent to investors with formal notices of meeting and explanatory materials approved by trustees. These materials will be sent to investors by early next week. "We believe the Allied Proposal to be a serious and credible Proposal, worthy of investor consideration." "We have no knowledge of any other interested party, and we will not speculate on media commentary," he said. "We are aware of some other interest in the past few days, but we now understand this is not going to proceed in a formal offer. Instead, we understand this party may look to take a position with Allied Farmers if the vote is successful."