NZ’s Sky City seen as potential buyer of QLD Unitab
New Zealand’s SkyCity Entertainment Group is being touted as the potential buyer of Australian gaming assets valued at up to $A920 million ($NZ1 billion).
In reports in New Zealand, Goldman Sachs JBWere analyst Marcus Curley views this as a potential outcome of a takeover battle between rival Australian gaming companies Tabcorp and Tattersall’s for Queensland-based Unitab.
Tabcorp last month offered $A14.25 per share for Unitab, beating Tattersall’s $A14 a share offer.
Mr Curley says that Melbourne-based Tabcorp has received unsolicited expressions of interest for Unitab’s gaming businesses and had implied it would sell at the right price, with SkyCity one of the main potential acquirers.
He added, that with Tabcorp already receiving unsolicited expressions of interest, he expected it would realise a relatively high price of between $A710 million and $A920 million.
He also said that Victorian Tattersall’s could be the other possible buyer with Unitab’s gambling businesses include gaming machine monitoring services in New South Wales, Queensland and the Northern Territory.
SkyCity already owns casinos in Adelaide and Darwin and while Melanie Palmer of SkyCity would not comment on the speculation, but bidding for Unitab’s gaming operations would be consistent with SkyCity’s expansion ambitions.
The Auckland-based firm was outbid last year for the Taverner Hotel Group, Australia’s second biggest gaming hotel group, by Bruandwo, a company 75% owned by Woolworths, who paid $A380 million.
Last month SkyCity bought stakes in three cinema businesses from Australia’s Village Roadshow for $49.5 million in a deal that made it New Zealand’s biggest stand-alone cinema owner and SkyCity’s biggest acquisition to date was 2004’s $A195 million ($NZ231.3 million) purchase of the Darwin Casino.
Mr Curley estimates SkyCity could fund up to $NZ300 million of any acquisition from debt and SkyCity has a debt to equity ratio of 38.5 per cent.
Report by The Mole
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