Sydney-based investment house, Pinnacle Investment Management has announced a capital raising and a takeover offer for beleaguered fund manager, Hunter Hall.
Pinnacle has announced to the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) that it has completed a placement of $30 million at the same time as declaring its intention to make a takeover offer for Hunter Hall via its wholly-owned subsidiary, Pinnacle Ethical Investment Holdings.
It said it was looking to an off market takeover to acquire all the shares in Hunter Hall International Limited at a price of $1.50 per share payable in cash.
In doing so, Pinnacle has effectively thrown down the gauntlet, stating that its offer represented a 50 per cent premium to the off-market takeover offer announced by Washington H. Soul Pattinson.
What was more, the Pinnacle bid allowed for an increase in the offer price to $2 per share in the event that it received acceptances of greater than 50 per cent of the issued capital in Hunter Hall.
The Pinnacle ASX announcement said the company intended to engage with the board of Hunter Hall with the aim of conducting comprehensive due diligence which included assessing the potential impacts of Peter Hall’s departure from the company, the investment capability of the remaining investment team, the recent poor performance of the Hunter Hall managed funds and listed investment company and the issues raised by Geoff Wilson of Wilson Asset Management.
