Margin Call: MYOB upbeat despite ASIC prospectus deadline extension

Artwork by Peter Nicholson.

Xero founder Rod Drury has been outspoken in slamming the prospectus issued by rival accounting software firm MYOB, but does ASIC boss Greg Medcraft also have a problem with the $830 million IPO?

ASIC on Tuesday extended the MYOB prospectus “exposure period” — during which no shares can be issued — by seven days.

It’s been spreadsheets at 20 paces between Drury and MYOB’s owner, US private equity group Bain Capital, for a month now. Among other things, Drury reckons MYOB’s prospectus is inadequate because it does not providing enough information about customer numbers, while Bain’s Craig Boyce has described his allegations as “outrageous”.

Who knew accounting software was so exciting?

But whether ASIC’s problems with the prospectus, helmed by Citi, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and UBS, are as colourful remains to be seen. ASIC can extend the exposure period when it think the prospectus may be “defective”, but it can also give more time because of public holidays like the Easter break last weekend.

If it’s holiday-related, ASIC’s stated policy is to add on as many days as there were in the break — but that would be two, not the seven actually whacked on.

That’s beyond April 13, when MYOB’s broker firm offer is due to open. If the situation isn’t resolved by the 14th, a stop order is the next tool in ASIC’s kit.

MYOB spokesman Andrew Stokes radiated sangfroid.

“We are confident in the appropriateness of our disclosures, and would obviously in all cases work constructively with regulators to answer questions they may have,” he said. “There is no change to the listing date as indicated in the prospectus (May 4).”

And none of this has stopped a grey market opening (see Dataroom today).

Master chef at Pratt bash

Pratt mansion Raheen, in leafy Kew, will be serving some of the best Indian cuisine seen in Melbourne on Saturday night when top Indian chefs Hemant Oberoi jets into town to support a New Delhi charity and celebrate a big family occasion.

Oberoi, the grand master chef at the Taj Mahal Hotel in New Delhi and corporate chef for the Taj Luxury Hotels — which includes over 200 restaurants around the world — is being flown to Australia by billionaire Anthony Pratt for the special event, which will also celebrate his 55th birthday.

Pratt will host six tables of his own guests at the gala event, which will no doubt include his board member Ashok Jacob and other senior Indians from the Australian corporate and political world, while the Australian Friends of Asha Slums will host 10 tables and the Indian Film Festival six.

Raptis tempts fate

Gold Coast developer Jim Raptis is adamant he will relist on the ASX the twice-failed property group he modestly named for himself after performing a magic trick on a $29m tax bill, which has somehow turned into $6.

Yesterday he told the ASX Raptis Group had also filed all its outstanding financial reports and found $1m to provide working capital for the company.

Ominously, he also said that “a development project is available to the company to recommence operations”.

If Raptis shareholders know anything, it’s that actually doing developments is what tends to bring it unstuck. Raptis collapsed in 1993 and again in 2008, when it was buried under a $1 billion debt pile after failing to pay back money borrowed to build the Southport Central towers.

Greeks bearing lists

The lobbyists of Canberra swarmed like flies in Sydney yesterday as the Senate inquiry into corporate tax heard from the Tax Commissioner, Chris Jordan, News Corp boss Julian Clarke and representatives of Google, Microsoft and Apple.

Spotted outside the CBD function room was Simon Banks, from Labor lobbyists Hawker Britton, while KPMG comms guy Ian Welch was seen inside looking nervous.

Jordan was unhappy with the inquiry’s “unprecedented” demand he reveal the names of corporates shovelling bulk dollars offshore, tax-free, into marketing centres in Singapore and the like. But there is international precedent for lifting the veil of taxpayer anonymity — from, er, Greece.

Back in 2012, Greece published a list of the top 4000 tax debtors, naming and shaming everyone from convicted fraudsters to entertainers to businesspeople.

It didn’t get Greece out of its financial hole and three years later it’s still struggling.

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