After a hectic week of shareholder meetings, an attempted high court injunction and a lot of board meetings, troubled Trans-Tasman life insurer Tower has decided shareholder Guinness Peat Group (GPG) will underwrite its entire issue in a bid to clear its debt hurdles before the August 8 deadline.

But GPG’s initial offer to kick in $NZ200 million in return for a 30-35% share in the company as well as a rights issue was knocked back in favour of a plan that allows all shareholders to have equal involvement. Instead, the new plan will see GPG with a 13.75% limit on its shareholding.

The Tower board says GPG has presented the best strategy to stop the company sinking further. In a statement Tower said: “The board had available to it two alternative proposals to underwrite the share issue. The board is of the opinion that the GPG underwriting proposal represented the best option for the company.”

A shareholder’s meeting on Friday decided to remove the group’s 10% shareholder cap, allowing GPG to become involved and increase its share in the company.

Shareholder the Hanover Group, which had proposed an alternative structure in a bid to overthrow GPG’s offer, unsuccessfully attempted to stop the meeting by going to the High Court in Auckland and seeking an injunction.