Perpetual chair rebukes sale speculation, warns shareholders over media reports
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The news: Perpetual Asset Management chair Greg Cooper has warned shareholders not to believe everything they read in the media, following a report that Oaktree Capital Management is considering walking away from talks to buy Perpetual’s wealth business.
The numbers: At 1:19pm AEDT shares in Perpetual had fallen 3.3% to $19.50.
The context: Perpetual announced its intentions to sell its wealth business in February after a buyout of the corporate trust and wealth businesses by multinational private equity firm KKR was terminated. This followed advice from the Australian Taxation Office that the deal would have higher taxes and duties than previously expected.
Negotiations with Oaktree have run since May, but the Financial Review reported on Tuesday that the investment firm is frustrated by the drawn out process and is seriously contemplating withdrawing.
In response to a question from Rita Mazalevski, calling for greater “honesty” on the progress of the negotiations, Cooper said “we are being very honest with our shareholders about what's going on”.
What they said: “I'm not going to respond to any particular elements of media speculation. All I would say to shareholders is just be very careful what you do read in the media is, quite often what's reported is invariably not an accurate position of what's really going on,” Cooper said.
Late on Tuesday afternoon, the Perpetual told the exchange it is “continuing to progress the sale of the business and is currently in discussions with more than one interested party”.
In a subsequent question, Mazalevski called for an independent external investigation be undertaken into “damaging business decisions” over the last few years, particularly regarding a series of acquisitions under the watch of former CEO Rob Adams “which now represent significant outflows”.
This was dismissed by board members, who highlighted that investors may be shifting away from active managers like Perpetual, to passive funds or between different types of equity exposures.They also said that Perpetual’s results are independently audited by KPMG.
The sources: Perpetual AGM, The Australian Financial Review, ASX
