Thorney Investments’ OneVue move a blocker on Iress takeover?

It is thought the motivation for Iress to buy OneVue is to gain access to its wealth management software.

Thorney Investments’ move to increase its stake in OneVue Holdings is what some are betting is an attempt to block a takeover of the business by Iress.

Last month, OneVue agreed to a scheme of arrangement where Iress would buy the business for 40c per share.

But Thorney is believed to be of the view that the OneVue board is allowing the business to be offloaded too cheaply.

In recent days, Thorney has lifted its position in the stock to 17.52 per cent from 17.09 per cent.

 

One thought is that the group could be trying to amass an even larger interest in the company to assert more control at the shareholder vote in October for the Iress scheme of arrangement, worth $107m.

The share price of wealth manager OneVue is about 38c as pressure mounts on Iress to improve its bid.

At the time the proposal was announced, Thorney held about 15.2 per cent of the company, and for a deal to be blocked, at least 25 per cent of votes cast have to be against the transaction.

When Iress bid, its offer was a 66.7 per cent premium to OneVue’s last closing share price of 24c.

It is thought the motivation for Iress to buy OneVue is to gain access to its wealth management software.

Iress has raised at least $150m to help fund the transaction, with Goldman Sachs underwriting the placement at $10.42, which was at a 7 per cent discount to its last closing share price.

The situation arises as a raft of deal activity is being discussed in the wealth management space right now. Banks are divesting assets and Perpetual announced an offshore acquisition on Monday.

As flagged, Perpetual launched a $225m placement as well as a $40m share purchase plan to buy a 75 per cent interest in the Dallas-based asset manager Barrow Hanley for $US319m.

This came as Perpetual signalled that its annual net profit will fall to $82m from $115.9m.

Working on the raise was Goldman Sachs and Bank of America, and market observers say that the acquisition that will triple its funds under management is part a move by Australian fund managers to search for new growth opportunities as limited opportunities are said to exist in the somewhat illiquid Australian market.