Marauder WIN eyes MacBank

BILLIONAIRE TV owner Bruce Gordon has endorsed Macquarie Bank as a likely business partner in expanding his WIN regional television empire as he fights takeover battles on two fronts for television stations.

BILLIONAIRE TV owner Bruce Gordon has endorsed Macquarie Bank as a likely business partner in expanding his WIN regional television empire as he fights takeover battles on two fronts for television stations.

Mr Gordon told The Australian: "With Macquarie, we like them, we've had talks with them over many years and they've done a great job."

The WIN owner said Macquarie could become more involved with WIN as it examines a float: "They're the kind of people we'd work with, particularly if we're doing an IPO initial public offering of shares."

Asked about working with an organisation such as Macquarie to examine purchasing larger media assets, Mr Gordon replied: "In a hypothetical situation, we'd have to look at something like that with Macquarie."

Macquarie Bank controls the Macquarie Media Group, owner of a mass of regional radio stations that would fit well with WIN's TV assets.

Mr Gordon has expressed his wish to expand the company's media empire through what he sees as a "one-in-20-year" chance: "We want to fill in the blanks."

His opportunity has been created by the recent proclamation of new media laws relaxing cross and foreign ownership requirements that have seen other media groups such as PBL and Seven take capital injections from private equity.

In his latest interview, Mr Gordon has made it clear he is interested in expansion through a similar injection of investment capital but expresses a clear preference for working with a local investor such as Macquarie rather than foreign private equity firms.

"I don't look at Macquarie the same way I look at a Blackstone or a KKR or a CVC. Those people are tough private equity people." Last month, Mr Gordon said private equity firms only wanted to "roll the investment over".

Mr Gordon also said he favoured a partial stockmarket float of WIN's TV assets as a basis for expansion.

The 78-year-old billionaire has turned the single NSW south coast station he purchased from Rupert Murdoch in 1979 into one of Australia's most diversified media companies. WIN Corporation directly owns 24 Nine Network affiliate stations across the country. It also has stakes in Sunraysia Television (which owns Channel Nine Perth) and SP Telemedia (which owns central and northern NSW Nine Network affiliate NBN Television).

It is the last two investments that have provoked most discussion in recent weeks. Earlier this month, WIN launched a $163.2million takeover bid for Channel Nine in Perth, topping a PBL Media bid for the station by $27 million.

PBL Media has moved quickly to counter the WIN bid on the west coast, this week making a "non-binding proposal" for NBN in a deal believed to be worth in excess of $170 million.

The Australian understands WIN, aided by advisers Goldman Sachs JBWere, completed its due diligence on NBN early last week. So far, there has been no indication WIN has made any offer on NBN but Mr Gordon has made it clear he wants to buy the regional operator.

The addition of NBN and Channel Nine in Perth would give WIN the basis of a lucrative stockmarket float. One media executive at another network said this week that NBN - the highest rating station in any network in Australia - was a "must-buy" in the context of WIN's grander plans.

A senior media analyst at a broking firm agreed, suggesting with WIN now in the box seat for Channel Nine Perth, PBL Media may offer some form of "swap" with Mr Gordon.

"Either Bruce Gordon aggressively outbids PBL Media for NBN or he can engineer a swap, assuming NBN is more important than Channel Nine Perth."

But one senior media executive believes NBN is also a good purchase for the Nine Network, given it has rugby league rights and the Newcastle/northern NSW region is passionate rugby league territory.

"PBL Media would be smart buying NBN, it's in an adjoining zone and they can run it from Sydney," he said.