News Corp-controlled digital real estate business REA Group has made a third offer for British listings platform Rightmove.
The company informed the ASX this morning it had made a third, improved, offer over the weekend after its previous offer, which valued the company at $11.5 billion, was rejected.
The new offer of £3.41 ($6.67) and 0.0422 new REA shares implies a value of £7.70 per Rightmove share, the offer said, thus valuing the company at £6.1 billion ($11.9 billion). The revised offer is a 9 per cent increase on REA’s initial offer.
Rightmove’s website is the most popular real estate listing platform in the UK.Credit: Bloomberg
REA chief executive Owen Wilson said the company has been “genuinely disappointed at the lack of engagement by Rightmove’s board”, strongly encouraging it to engage with the new offer.
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“We have today increased our proposal to an implied value of 770 pence – it provides a combination of immediate value certainty in cash and at the same time gives Rightmove shareholders an increasing opportunity in core digital property and adjacency, where we have much expertise,” Wilson said.
Previously, REA said the potential buyout offered an opportunity to create a “global and diversified digital property company, with number one positions in the UK and Australia”.
REA closed at $198.99 on the ASX on Friday.