SCA takes its time on ARN as Catalano waits in the wings
At the company's AGM last week, Southern Cross chair Rob Murray made it clear the company was in no hurry to respond to a takeover offer from rival ARN.
At an intimate annual general meeting in Sydney on Friday, Southern Cross Austereo board members made it clear they would take every second needed before making a call on the conditional takeover bid lobbed at them by ASX-listed rival ARN last week.
The status of the deal floated to the top of chairman Rob Murray’s opening address in a small room in the company's World Square offices, where only a handful of shareholders sat before him. He was quick to dash any hopes for a material update shortly after.
Murray said ARN Media and private equity group Anchorage Capital were hopeful they could reach in-principle agreement with Southern Cross by December. But Murray said he considers that timeline “highly optimistic” given the workload involved in assessing the conditional offer.
“So — and frankly — we’re not going to be rushed by that view as we try and assess whether there’s value here for our shareholders,” Murray said, in response to a question from a shareholder on a possible timeline. “But we’re engaging with genuine intent to discover whether that’s the case.”
