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Australian private equity firm Ironbridge Capital insists it is happy to keep MediaWorks on the NZX and run the broadcast company with minority investors after its full takeover bid failed.
But given that there would be a relatively small cost to boosting the $2.33 offer for the few shareholders who did not accept, analysts expect Ironbridge will come up with a higher offer - and that it will come sooner rather than later.
Sandra Urlich of First New Zealand Capital has suggested that with so few investors left, it would be easy to take a new offer to $2.60 or beyond.
Ironbridge, through its MediaWorks holding vehicle HT Media, yesterday confirmed what the market had already guessed, when the $2.33 offer closed on Monday, that it had failed. Ironbridge needed 90 per cent of shares in the broadcasting company - which owns TV3, C4 and half the country's radio stations - before the remaining 10 per cent were obliged to sell.
Ironbridge operational partner and HT Media chairman Kerry McIntosh said yesterday that the company had reached just 82.3 of MediaWorks, leaving 17.7 per cent held by other parties.
Of that, 8.6 per cent of is owned by Brook Asset Management, which has said that the $2.33 offer substantially undervalued the company.
Brook Asset Management executive chairman Simon Botherway believes the other 9.1 per cent is largely held by retail investors.
Botherway said again yesterday that Brook liked MediaWorks' prospects and its management and was looking at the prospect of maintaining a role in the company. But an analyst yesterday said Ironbridge would almost inevitably make a higher offer to take the company private.
With Ironbridge so close to a full takeover, the costs involved in a higher offer of up to $2.70 were minimal. "The capital cost of remaining a listed company would probably be more than the added cost of increasing the offer." Shares closed at $2.35.
HT Media chairman Kerry McIntosh issued a brief statement.
"We are pleased with the outcome of our takeover offer and look forward to working with and supporting the management and staff of MediaWorks to take the business forward."
Botherway said that as a portfolio based company Brook was "always prepared to sell at the right price ... but the reality is that Ironbridge have anticipated a situation where the thing remains listed".
