Iconic brand RM Williams may end up in Australian hands after mining billionaire Andrew Forrest’s investment vehicle lobbed an unsolicited bid for the bootmaker just as private equity firm TPG Capital’s interest was starting to wane.
Mr Forrest’s private investment arm Tattarang is understood to have put in the offer with RM Williams owner L Catterton and its bankers Goldman Sachs.
The move by the mining billionaire comes weeks after private equity firm TPG entered exclusive talks to buy the boot and apparel maker for about $200m, but rumours are swirling that TPG is losing interest and may pull out.
Tattarang declined to comment.
With a paper wealth of $22.1bn, Mr Forrest is now calculated as Australia’s second wealthiest person after shares in his iron ore miner Fortescue Metals have surged about 80 per cent since March, and he will receive a $1.16bn dividend cheque on October 2.
The owners of the iconic RM Williams had hoped to offload it for about $500m last year and launched a sale campaign through Goldman Sachs.
Mr Forrest’s investment office, formerly known as Minderoo, was back then understood to be an interested party in the bootmaker.
RM Williams is 82 per cent-owned by L Catterton, a private equity fund backed by luxury conglomerate LVMH, while IFM Investors has a 13 per cent holding and Hugh Jackman holds the remaining 5 per cent.
If successful, Mr Forrest would be bringing the boot and apparel maker back under Australian ownership less than a decade after L Catterton scooped it up.
RM Williams was founded in 1932 by Australian businessman and entrepreneur Reginald Murray Williams, who sold it in 1988 to South Australian stock and station agents Bennett & Fisher before it was placed in the hands of Ken Cowley in the mid-1990s.
In 2013, the Cowley family sold a 49.9 per cent stake to the LVMH-based private equity group, then known as L Capital Asia.
RM Williams isn’t the only company Mr Forrest is hoping to bring back under Australian ownership. Tatterang was recently named as an interested party in Lion’s proposed $600m sale of its dairy business after an earlier-agreed sale to China-based Mengniu was blocked by the federal government.
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