Jostling continues around Hunter Hall
Jostling around control of Hunter Hall is continuing with both Washington H. Soul Pattinson (WHSP) and Pinnacle having last week revised their offers and further significant trades having occurred today.
Hunter Hall used a statement to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) late on Friday to confirm that WHSP had lodged a supplementary bidder's statement increasing its offer to $1.60 per share and declaring the bid unconditional.
It said that separately, Pinnacle Investment Management had announced its intention to increase its takeover offer to $2 per share and had declared the offer unconditional.
The Hunter Hall directors have urged shareholders to reject both the WHSP and Pinnacle bids.
However the Hunter Hall statement described the WHSP revised takeover offer as representing a material discount to recent market prices including a 51 per cent discounting to the closing price of Hunter Hall shares on 23 December of $3.25 per share and a 46 per cent discount to the mid-point of the value range assessed by the independent expert in response to WHSP Bidder's initial offer being approximately $2.98 per Hunter Hall International Limited share and a 33 per cent discount to the last closing price of HHL shares on Friday of $2.40 per share.
The statement gave a similar assessment of the Pinnacle bid as being at a 38 per cent discount to the closing price of HHL shares on 23 December, 33 per cent to the mid-point value and 17 per cent to the last closing price.
The competition around control of Hunter Hall follows on from last year's surprise announcement by founder and major shareholder, Peter Hall, that he was exiting the fund manager.
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