Toll says raised bid for Patrick depends on ACCC view

<p>Toll Holdings says that increasing its scrip and cash offer for Patrick Corp will depend on the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s view of the revised undertakings Toll gave to the Federal Court on Monday (February 27).</p> <p>The Federal Court has given the ACCC until March 14 to consider Toll’s latest undertakings, which included major concessions on east-west rail track access and competition.</p> <p>However, the latest undertakings made no response to the commission’s concerns on vertical integration of port and logistics activities, which were a key part of its veto of the deal in January.</p> <p>A Toll spokesman said the new bid structure would take into account, "the Federal Court and ACCC consideration of Toll’s revised undertakings.and the viability of the new structure in terms of how it works for Toll, but the detail of any new bid has not been finalised at this point in time". </p> <p>A supplementary bidders statement is to be sent out in the next week.</p> <p>A Patrick spokesman said the announcement by Toll "simply tells people that even they are no longer interested in their current bid. By extending their bid rather than calling it off, Toll is simply seeking to prevent Patrick from getting on with the business of competing with Toll". </p> <p>Toll has to balance an increased offer with the reduced synergies and assets it will get from Patrick were the ACCC to now approve the deal. </p> <p>A further rejection by the ACCC on March 14 will see the commission’s case for an injunction go to trial in the Federal Court, or possibly allow Toll to abandon the bid as too hard. </p> <p>Toll is expected to increase its bid to over $7, with Patrick’s target statement setting an expert valuation of its shares between $7.75 and $8.31.</p> <p>One anonymous analyst was reported in <em>The Australian</em> as saying that Toll had the balance sheet strength to mount a half scrip, half cash offer of $8 per share. However, he said this would affect the ability to offer cash for deals in Asia where Toll says that it is expecting to finalise an acquisition by the end of the month. </p> <br />