Australia's Perpetual rejects $1.1 bln takeover, regulator probes trading - Reuters.com

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Nov 3 (Reuters) - Trading in shares of Australian asset manager Perpetual Ltd (PPT.AX) in the final minute of trade on Wednesday is being investigated in light of a A$1.68 billion ($1.07 billion) takeover bid that arrived on Thursday, the regulator said.

Perpetual rejected a $A30 per share offer proposal from Barings Private Equity Asia (BPEA), which was recently bought by EQT (EQTAB.ST), and Australian firm Regal Partners (RPL.AX).

It said the bid materially undervalued the firm.

Perpetual shares, which had a market capitalisation of nearly A$1.55 billion, climbed about 6.3% in the final minute of trade on Wednesday and the Australian Securities and Investment Commission (ASIC) said it was investigating.

"ASIC is aware of the price movement in Perpetual shares yesterday and, as with all significant price movements around corporate transactions, our surveillance unit will review trading activity," an ASIC spokesperson said in response to a Reuters query.

The Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) declined to comment and Perpetual did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Perpetual shares rose by as much as 10.1% early on Thursday, the company's best session in more than two years, before retreating to be up 6.6%.

Perpetual said it would press on with its planned A$2.51 billion acquisition of rival Pendal Group (PDL.AX) announced in August.

The private equity offer represents a premium of about 11.5% to Perpetual's last close of A$26.90.

Regal Partners said in a separate statement that it would look to buy Perpetual's asset management businesses, while BPEA would seek to acquire Perpetual's corporate trust and private clients businesses.

BPEA is one of the region's largest private equity firms and was bought by EQT in March. It has $20 billion worth of assets under management, according to its website.

Perpetual had A$89.8 billion of assets under management as of September-end.

($1 = 1.5763 Australian dollars)

Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Sydney and Upasana Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath, Richard Pullin and Anil D'Silva

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

Scott Murdoch

Thomson Reuters

Scott Murdoch has been a journalist for more than two decades working for Thomson Reuters and News Corp in Australia. He has specialised in financial journalism for most of his career and covers equity and debt capital markets across Asia based in Hong Kong.

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