HT&E rejects Ooh Media bid to buy Adshel
Here, There & Everywhere has told the market it has received an offer from Ooh Media to buy its outdoor operation Adshel, but has rejected the bid because it was too low. The amount on the table was not disclosed.
The announcement, made to the ASX this afternoon, fires the starting pistol on a widely anticipated round of consolidation in the outdoor industry.
As well as Adshel, which specialises in street furniture advertising, HT&E also owns the Australian Radio Network and online publisher Conversant Media.
However HT&E’s board said in this afternoon’s update to the ASX that the offer “does not adequately reflect the value of Adshel to HT&E shareholders”.
The announcement said that Adshel is in line to deliver a profit of at least $113m for the current financial year, broadly similar to last year. “Ongoing initiatives include the reinstatement of Adshel Live nationally, the launch of Metro Trains Melbourne over the next four to six weeks, and continued digitisation of the street furniture network ensures Adshel remains a key operator in the out of home landscape, particularly in Melbourne,” the update continued.
Last month, Adshel also extended its contract with Sydney Trains.
At close of business today, HT&E’s market capitalisation on the ASX was $581m, while Ooh Media was $790m.
The bid comes almost a year after the failure of a merger between APN Outdoor and Ooh Media following concerns voiced by the competition watchdog.
113m in profit? Surely not.
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Ooh Media are so bloody greedy!
It’s not enough that they have almost monopolized the large format (APN who?) and shopping screen market but now they want street furniture as well.
JCDecaux (with global support) need to man up and make that same offer – “we are street furniture”, etc
McIntyre Out!
Mumbrella understands this comment has not originated from MCN’s editor-at-large Paul McIntyre
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It’s called good business, [edited].
oOh! have every right to ‘monopolize’ their portion of the industry.
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Hi Gorak,
I have edited your comment as you appeared to be directly addressing Paul McIntyre, editor-at-large at MCN.
Despite the alias of ‘McIntyre’, I can confirm this comment did not come from Paul.
Thanks,
Vivienne – Mumbrella