Pbl Bid For Car Classies Website

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday September 26, 2006

Lisa Murray

JAMES Packer's Publishing and Broadcasting Ltd is aggressively pushing into the online classifieds market, announcing plans yesterday for a full takeover of Carsales.com.au.

The move comes as PBL spent just over $35 million buying another 7 million shares, or 2.4 per cent, of job website Seek. The purchase lifted its stake to 27 per cent. It also follows the company's decision to change the name of one of its subsidiaries to Myhome.com.au last month, amid reports it is teaming with a number of real estate agents to enter the online property classifieds market.

A source close to PBL said the company would "look at putting the online businesses together in the long run." They also said PBL would like to further increase its stake in Seek. The Seek deal went some way to realising the substantial wealth of the company's founders and joint chief executives Andrew and Paul Bassat. They each sold PBL two million shares, pocketing more than $10 million. However, they assured shareholders in a separate statement they had no current intention to sell any more shares and were "long-term committed shareholders in the company."

The two brothers said the sale was solely for "reasons of personal asset allocation.

The other Seek founder, Matthew Rockman, who left the company last month, sold 3 million shares to PBL.

Seek, the country's dominant online job ads business, has been one of PBL's most successful investments. PBL bought 25 per cent of the company in 2003 for $33 million, and its holding is now worth more than ten times that.

Carsales is an unlisted public company with more than 50 shareholders, many of whom are car dealers. Chairman Wal Pisciotta said yesterday the company planned to list on the stock exhange in the middle of next year. He said it had not yet received the formal offer documentation from PBL and the offer was "unsolicited" and "a bit of a surprise."

PBL's magazine division has a 41 per cent stake in Carsales and its takeover bid, at $1.21 a share, values the whole company at $270 million. The bid was part of a move to get John Fairfax Holdings off the register.

"We are making the bid for the whole of Carsales as a condition of acquiring the option over the 3 per cent of Carsales held by Fairfax Digital, which gives all other shareholders the opportunity to sell the whole or any part of their shares at the same price should they wish," Mr Packer said in a statement.

Fairfax is expected to sell its remaining 3.7 per cent stake. A spokesman for the company said it had been "a good investment."

© 2006 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home