Summary –
L1 Capital mulls its Plan B amid Platinum merger diligence. L1 Capital’s Mark Landau and Raphael Lamm aren’t leaving things to chance in their attempt to merge with the $326 million Platinum Asset Management, the rapidly shrinking pioneer of global equities investing in Australia. L1 on Thursday announced the purchase of a 16.85% stake in Platinum Capital Limited. That’s on top of L1’s circa 19.99% effective stake acquired from founder Kerr Neilson in Platinum Asset Management about five weeks ago alongside the merger.
Phil King and Geoff Wilson have both tried (and failed), and it won’t be surprising if the L1 duo test the same via their $1.76 billion L1 Long Short Fund. Basically, if you can’t – or don’t want to – buy the whole thing, why not just buy the best bits?
The second, and the more probable reason for L1’s shopping spree, would be that Landau and Lamm as battening down the hatches, closing off avenues for an interloper to storm in when it’s got Platinum on the table and ready to deal.
LICATs Weekly Summary
Name Code Closing Price Running Yield NTA Premium/(discount) to NTA Market Capitalisation (millions) Average Daily ASX turnover (000s) Acorn Capital Investment Fund ACQ 0.735 #N/A 1.10 -0.33 65.64 56 Glennon Small Companies GC1 0.465 0.07 0.79 -0.41 22.44 31 Katana Capital KAT 1.2 0.02 1.34 -0.10 37.21 7 KKR Credit Income Fund KKC 2.29 0.09 2.46 -0.07 738.60 431 MCP Income Opportunities Trust MOT 2.02 0.08 2.15 -0.06 671.95 397 MCP Master Trust MXT 2.05 0.08 2.01 0.02 2181.11 1087 Perpetual Credit Income Trust PCI 1.195 0.08 1.11 0.08 581.44 505 Qualitas Real Estate Income Fund QRI 1.62 0.08 1.61 0.01 985.89 283 WAM Alternative Assets WMA 0.96 0.08 1.19 -0.20 188.33 209
Closing price as at end of week.