Southmark Ends Efforts to Acquire Care Enterprises

Southmark Corp., a Dallas financial services and real estate conglomerate, has withdrawn its bid to acquire control of Care Enterprises Inc., the Laguna Hills nursing home operator that is struggling to refinance its debt to avoid bankruptcy.

Southmark spokesman Tom Walker said Monday that Southmark had “totally abandoned “a proposal it made last spring to secure voting rights to about 23% of Care Enterprises’ voting shares from Ted Nelson, a dissident co-founder and former director, and to buy an additional 26% of CareEnterprises’ voting shares held by the company’s vice-chairman, Dee Bangerter, who is in personal bankruptcy.

Walker said Southmark was discouraged when Care Enterprises Chairman Lee Bangerter and other members of the the nursing company’s board of directors refused to discuss the proposal, which Care Enterprise considered to constitute an “unfriendly takeover” bid.

“We don’t do unfriendly takeovers and we never had any negotiation discussions or any response to any of our requests for information about the company or to meet and discuss our interest in the company. So we didn’t proceed any further,” Walker said.