Platinum board meets as Regal preps rev ised bid | Italy’s Enel in $800m Aussie ren ewables purchase | AustralianSuper-backed Fed eration Mining in M&A mode

Good evening,

Platinum Asset Management’s Guy Strapp-chaired board is understood to have fielded competing proposals, while Phil King’s Regal Partners works through internal approvals to formally submit its revised bid.

Street Talk understands the $693 million global equities investing house’s board was hard at work over the weekend after an emergency meeting was called late Friday. Sources said the task at hand was to vet informal approaches from suitors looking to gazump Regal Partners which put Platinum in play last month.

Of course, it remains to be seen if any party will put pen to paper and formally submit a rival bid that merits disclosure.

Meanwhile, Regal is understood to have convened a board meeting for Monday to attain the final approvals on submitting an improved offer. It comes after it was granted non-exclusive due diligence granted around October 4.

Regal is advised by Barrenjoey Capital Partners, while Platinum has Jefferies Australia on defence.

At stake is Platinum Asset Management, which has shrunk from overseeing $26 billion in client assets in its heyday to $12.5 billion at the end of September after years of fund-level underperformance.
At a company level, it has battled a high-cost base and internal staff ructions. Co-founder Kerr Neilson last year declared his 21.48 per cent was for sale, while calling for Andrew Clifford to step down as the CEO.

Read the full story tomorrow and more on the Street Talk page.

AustralianSuper-backed Federation Mining tabled a higher non-binding indicative bid to ASX-listed Siren Gold’s board on Friday, which hasn’t been disclosed to shareholders ahead of Monday’s vote for rival bidder Rua Gold.

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