Moelis tapped for PEP’s $1.80 a share bid for Healthia
Pacific Equity Partners has lobbed a big-premium bid for ASX-listed healthcare business Healthia, swiftly winning board approval and support of 26.8 per cent of the register including Regal, MA Financial and Wilson Asset Management.
PEP’s bid for Healthia looks like a clean deal.
The scheme bid at $1.80 a share is a whopping 84.6 per cent premium to Healthia’s last close, with shareholders getting the option to take it in cash, unlisted scrip or a mix of the two. It is also at a 22.4 per cent to the last capital raise, implying the deal should appeal to both long-timers and relatively recent arrivals on Healthia’s register.
It values Healthia at about $260 million. The two camps have entered a binding scheme implementation deed. A vote and independent expert report are pending, but otherwise it looks like a pretty clean deal.
PEP had David Emmanuel and Scott McKnight, who have each spent nearly a decade at the firm, leading the charge. They tapped MA Moelis for advice and had Allen & Overy at hand for legal counsel. (MA Moelis’s investing business MA Financial is also Healthia’s largest shareholder and supporting the deal).
The target is being advised by Dean Milner from Monash Advisory and Stephanie Daveson from law firm Clayton Utz.
The deal is in PEP’s sweet spot. Allied healthcare has been a classic play for the firm. Should it complete as expected, it would be PEP’s ninth public to private deal, and its seventh one in healthcare.
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