PBL push for $200m NBN deal

PBL Media's battle with Bruce Gordon to expand its Channel Nine stations has moved from Perth to Newcastle, with both parties holding talks with the owners of NBN Television about a deal worth as much as $200 million.

PBL Media's battle with Bruce Gordon to expand its Channel Nine stations has moved from Perth to Newcastle, with both parties holding talks with the owners of NBN Television about a deal worth as much as $200 million.

A third bidder from the increasingly active private equity sector is also believed to have approached SP Telemedia, which owns the high-rating Nine Network affiliate NBN, but it is understood that no firm bids have been lodged.

Macquarie Bank is also understood to have expressed some preliminary interest in NBN, which operates in central and northern NSW.

PBL executives are believed to have held discussions at NBN premises in Newcastle this week.

SP Telemedia is a publicly listed subsidiary of venerable conglomerate Washington H Soul Pattinson and also operates regionally focused telecommunications group Soul. The TV station was vended into SP Telemedia in 2004 for $145 million.

NBN is not officially on the market, but WIN has led a swag of companies interested in taking it over. In a recent interview with The Australian, WIN's reclusive billionaire owner Bruce Gordon declared his desire to take ownership of NBN.

"It's of a lot of interest to us," he said. "We're keeping our options open."

Mr Gordon has expressed some interest in joining the private equity bandwagon - after previously being critical of them as potential media owners. Mr Packer has already tipped his media assets into a joint venture between PBL and private equity group CVC Asia Pacific, and Kerry Stokes's Seven Network has done a similar deal with Kohlberg Kravis Roberts.

"These people are not necessarily TV experts," Mr Gordon said. "They are investors who put money into a wide range of companies."

This week it emerged that investment bank Goldman Sachs JB Were had been advising WIN on a bid for NBN. Executives of the two companies and advisers met in Soul Pattinson's Pitt St headquarters in Sydney last week.

"We are looking at Newcastle at the moment," a senior WIN executive, who wished to remain anonymous, told The Australian. WIN has a 12.7 per cent stake in SP Telemedia. For the past two months WIN and PBL Media have been locked in a takeover battle for Channel Nine in Perth, which is owned by the Eva Presser-controlled Sunraysia Television.

WIN already owns just under under 45 per cent of Sunraysia.

WIN and PBL Media have made competing bids for the Perth TV station, triggering a bitter court battle.

Last week WIN raised its bid for the station by $17 million to $163.2 million.

"We can handle Perth and Newcastle," the WIN executive said, referring to Channel Nine Perth and NBN.

In a recent interview with The Australian Soul Pattinson chairman Robert Millner said: "Soul Pattinson is an investment company, and if someone makes us the right offer for any of our businesses, we'll look at selling them."

There is increasing speculation in financial markets that Mr Gordon, who recently purchased pay-TV group SelecTV, is bulking up his television operations for a stock market float. WIN has always been privately held.

The strategy behind PBL Media's possible regional move was to buy some of its affiliates and strip out affiliate fees which would then go straight to the bottom line, one analyst said.

An NBN insider said PBL Media's regional expansion strategy was being led by chief executive Ian Law and Nine Network executive director Jeff Browne.

The analyst said any loss of Nine Perth or NBN to WIN could ultimately hit PBL's profits.

The WIN source poured scorn on PBL's regional record.

"PBL are capital city operators," the source said.

SP Telemedia shares have risen sharply in the past month on speculation that NBN might be sold, jumping from 76c in mid-March to as high as $1.03 last week. They fell back 0.05c yesterday to close at 97.5c.

Soul Pattinson's Mr Millner could not be reached for comment last night.