Good evening,

It’s a big week for Ramsay Health Care with the company’s board mulling ways to put life back into its $30 billion takeover.

Its options, as Street Talk revealed, include spinning off its near 53 per cent stake in French hospitals group Ramsay Sante to shareholders via an in-specie distribution.

While nothing’s been determined, it’s a structure that Ramsay has tested with investors. There were initial reactions, which sent the bankers back to the drawing board to find the answers.

Ramsay seems focused on potential flow back (selling of Sante shares), Sante’s liquidity and retail investors.

The structure was designed to overcome a roadblock with KKR locked out of diligence in France and facing potential regulatory hurdles, given its shareholding in Sante’s main rival Elsan.

To Street Talk, it looks like the kind of deal that could work, in theory, similar to the way BHP took Woodside shares for its petroleum business, only to in-specie distribution that stock to its investors.

Elsewhere, we found the defence advisers at Megaport, and reveal former Healthscope boss Bruce Dixon’s $20 million-odd deal to buy Lloyd Williams’ horse training farm.

Happy reading,
Anthony Macdonald, Sarah Thompson and Kanika Sood
Street Talk editors