REA, the Australian property listings portal controlled by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, has upped its proposed takeover offer for the UK’s Rightmove to £6.1 billion.
The 770p a share proposal is the second time REA has increased the terms of a combination that would create one of the world’s largest listings websites.
So far Rightmove has rejected the approach as “opportunistic” and there was no immediate response this morning.
Under the terms of the latest enhancement Rightmove shareholders would receive 341 pence in cash and 0.0422 new REA shares for each share currently held. REA has also pledged a UK secondary listing for the shares.
That is an improvement of 9.2% on the 705p put on the table at the start of September and a 39 per cent premium to Rightmove’s share price of 556 pence before the first offer proposal was made.
The REA board urged Rightmove shareholders “to encourage the board of directors of Rightmove to engage in constructive discussions with REA to work towards a recommended transaction” before a Takeover Panel “put up or shut up” deadline at the end of the month.
REA’s CEO Owen Wilson said: “We believe that the combination of our world-leading expertise and technology with the attractive Rightmove business will create an enhanced experience for agents, buyers and sellers of property.
“We live in a world of intensifying competition and this proposed transaction would bring together two highly complementary digital property businesses for investment and growth.
“We have today increased our proposal to an implied value of 770 pence – it provides a combination of immediate value certainty in cash and at the same time gives Rightmove shareholders an increasing opportunity in core digital property and adjacencies where we have much expertise. We are genuinely disappointed at the lack of engagement by Rightmove’s Board and we strongly encourage the Rightmove Board to engage.”
