KEY POINTS:
Major shareholders in Tourism Holdings Ltd will wait to see if another suitor emerges to trump Australia's MFS Living and Leisure's $2.80 per share takeover offer.
The offer, which values THL at $275 million, needs 90 per cent acceptance to proceed.
THL's two biggest shareholders, US investor Sterling Grace with 17 per cent, and fund manager AXA, with about 13 per cent, could block the bid. Cushing family interests, with 9.5 per cent, and fund manager Tower, with about 5 per cent, could also - jointly or with other shareholders - stymie the takeover.
THL chief executive Trevor Hall says: "The big stakeholders have given no indication as to how they viewed the offer. In these situations, particularly with professional investors, they will wait until the independent experts report."
Tower says it is evaluating THL's recent guidance that its net profit would be $17.5m-$18.5m for the year to June, compared with its previous guidance of $15m-$18m.
The THL board plans to recommend shareholders accept the deal, if no higher offer is made and the bid is valued within a fair range by an independent appraisal report.
Sir Selwyn Cushing - trustee of the Cushing Trust - says that he will wait for the report before forming a view.
Wayne Stechman, head of New Zealand equities at Tower Asset Management, said: "It is a reasonable first-up bid that has to be taken reasonably seriously, but we haven't completed our own internal valuation update yet, post the earnings revision that they gave a few days beforehand.
"We won't make any decisions until we have a look at the independent report and see what crops up in the meantime from anyone else."
Brokers said there did not appear to be any counter bidders waiting in the wings for THL.
At $2.80, the offer price is at a substantial premium to the $1.55 to $2.32 price range the stock has traded within over the past year.
Richard Leggat, head of research sales at UBS New Zealand, says: "$2.80 a share appeared to be a good price, given the price range over the last three or four years.
"I think it [the bid] has a reasonable chance, but it will be very dependent on the views of those four main shareholders."
Sterling Grace owns New Zealand's Trustee Executors, whose executive director, Deepak Gupta, was unavailable for comment on the offer.
AXA, whose THL holding is managed by Alliance Bernstein in Wellington, declined to comment.
Shares in THL have been lightly traded since the bid's announcement.
This is reflecting a similar "wait-and-see" approach from individual investors.
