If the attempted hostile takeover of Comvita by Cerebos Greggs, a subsidiary of the Japanese booze giant Suntory, shows anything, it's that financial analyists can do a wonderful job of crunching numbers, but completely fail to understand the things that make a company like Comvita such a successful high-growth business.
Comvita was founded on a set of core ethical values, and those values permeate the way its many dedicated staff, overseas partners, and NZ suppliers work together to bring natural healthcare products to the world. Chief among those values are honesty and cooperation.
Cerebos NZ chief executive George Crocker has tried to make it appear in his public comments that Comvita welcomed the takeover bid, when he knew full well that sharemarket rules required Comvita to allow any company to carry out due diligence under such circumstances.
The truth of the matter is as Comvita chairman Neil Craig put it – the takeover attempt is unsolicited and unwelcome, and has diverted time, energy and resources away from Comvita's real purpose.
Crocker should realise something they might not teach in business school. Even if the attempt to bully his firm's way into Comvita manages to succeed, unless he and his team are able to change the way they do business and show they can pay more than lip-service to Comvita's core values, Cerebos will destroy the glue that holds together an iconic New Zealand company. He'll have numbers he can initially put on a balance sheet, but he will probably lose many of the people and much of the passion that has made Comvita what it is today.

Cliff Van Eaton, Papamoa.