Page 171 - Be Reasonable – Do It My Way , Peter E. Daly AM, My Story

CHAPTER 17 - CIC INSURANCE (CIC)
Chapter 17 - CIC Insurance (CIC)
Then along came the CIC Insurance Company. Little did I know at the time that this was going to be a catalyst for a major new direction in my working career.
CIC Insurance was a company listed on the ASX. It itself had been formed from a merger of the Co-operative Insurance Company, the National Insurance Co. of New Zealand and Carlingford Australia Insurance Company Ltd. In another strange coincidence the original CIC merger was to be between Co-Op and National and Grahme Bond was to be the CEO. At the last play Carlingford Australia came into the picture and their CEO became the new CIC CEO. Grahme Bond moved on to become the head of the ICA. Of course, I followed Grahme into his seat at ICA after the Norwich/CIC eventual merger
It was public knowledge that CIC was for sale and Ken Williams in Norwich wanted us to have a look at buying it. It turned out that CIC had already done a deal with a company in New Zealand, so the NW bid was rejected. However, our solicitors found a flaw in the transaction and armed with a QC’s opinion we took them to court and won. As a result, NW succeeded in purchasing CIC and obtaining FIRB (Foreign Investment Review Board) approval.
While NW were bidding for CIC, Ken Williams from Head Office in Norwich UK . used to phone me almost every night and give me instructions over the phone.
This included such major points as the price we were to offer and his instructions to me to remove the Chairman and the Board. But he never confirmed any of this in writing and I was so concerned about it that, to protect myself, I resorted to recording all the phone calls!
We were all very excited at the time at the major opportunity this
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