Healthscope Ltd (ASX: HSO) is under a takeover offer from Brookfield, with an indicative price of $2.50 per share. Previously a consortium, of which Australian Super is a part, had offered $2.36 a share, the company is currently trading at $2.48. A previous offer was closer to $2.00. The forward price-earnings-ratio (PER) at the time of writing is 24x, with the median PER for the industry at 20x.
Australian Super, which has an investment of $500 million or 14% holding in Healthscope, has said the company would not accept the Brookfield offer. Healthscope is one of Australia's leading healthcare operators, with hospitals, pathology services and medical centres. Healthscope also has a substantial property portfolio as it owns many of the hospitals it operates.
As reported in The Australian newspaper, Credit Suisse's US equity research team said that in situations like this with a bidding war, the price bias is likely to be up.
