The drama continues with the potential takeover of private hospital operator Healthscope Ltd (ASX: HSO).
AustralianSuper is part of a bidding consortium, along with BGH Capital and a few Canadian pension funds, which put in the initial bid for Healthscope a few weeks ago at $2.36 per share. However, at the time AustralianSuper said it would vote down any other offers – it is already a substantial shareholder. In total the group owns around 14.5% of the shares.
Yesterday, an offer came in for Healthscope at $2.50 from Brookfield, a global real estate manager. This offer is clearly superior to the first for most of Healthscope's current shareholders.
The problem is that AustralianSuper doesn't want to sell its shares, it wants to increase its holding of Healthscope. So it wants as low of a price as possible to pay for the new shares it wants to buy.
AustralianSuper is going to reject the Brookfield offer according to the Australian Financial Review.
However, that doesn't mean the offer will be rejected by Healthscope. The consortium only owns 14.5% of the shares, it's in the interest of the rest of the shareholders to accept the better offer. Therefore the other shareholders likely have the numbers to accept the Brookfield offer.
Foolish takeaway
I'm not sure who's going to be the eventual owner of Healthscope, but it appears that both sides aren't going to offer any more. Brookfield is offering the best deal and AustralianSuper doesn't want to pay more than its first offer. As I said yesterday in my article, for current shareholders it would probably be best to sell on the market and move on – a price of $2.58 yesterday was more than the best offer price.
