Rattoon fails in Tattersall’s bid

SYDNEY - Rattoon Holdings, an Australian investment company backed by corporate raider Sir Ron Brierley, has failed in a bid to acquire a 5 per cent stake in soon-to-be-floated gaming company Tattersall's Holdings.

Rattoon's preemptive A$100 million ($107 million) offer, which closed at midnight on Monday, was undersubscribed, with Rattoon spending only A$2.6 million, chairman Hugh Henderson said yesterday.

Rattoon already held a 0.5 per cent stake before the offer.

"They hadn't taken our offer up ... because they believed they'd be better waiting until June 1, when they get shares rather than their notional units," said Henderson.

A "third party" had made a A$60 million offer to beneficiaries at a price higher than Rattoon's, although to his knowledge that offer had also been rejected.

Stakeholders in Tattersall's are being wooed even before the prospectus for the A$2.1 billion float, which could happen as soon as July, has been posted.

Tattersall's currently operates under a will founder George Adams made before his death in 1904 and represents the interest of around 2500 beneficiaries of the estate in Australia and England.

"It's a weird one. You're dealing with a sort of closed entity. They're all family members and they all talk to each other. They're precious - they've had this forever and it's like a little club," said Henderson.

Ahead of the float, Tattersall's beneficiaries will receive private shares in place of their units on June 1. Unlike the units, they can be exchanged without going through trustees of the estate.

Rattoon, in which Brierley's Guinness Peat Group holds a 13 per cent stake, said its offer of A$22 a unit represented a 15 per cent premium over a A$3 a share indicative float price for Tattersall's.

Tattersall's, which expects to post the float prospectus around June 2, is expected to have 700 million shares on issue.

Trustees of Tattersall's have made their own pre-float sell-down offer of cash to beneficiaries, saying those who accepted would receive the same price institutional investors paid in the float.

Tattersall's holds gaming licences in Victoria as well as licences to run lotteries in four Australian jurisdictions, and businesses in Fiji and the Cook Islands.

- REUTERS