From Domain:
With Fairfax’s major shareholders warming to the price TPG and its bidding partners are willing to pay for the company, foreign investment approval will be one of the big potential hurdles to getting a deal across the line.
While TPG’s primary interest in Fairfax is ownership of the fast-growing real estate advertising portal Domain, the American private equity firm also wants to own the company’s metropolitan mastheads – The Australian Financial Review, The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age – which are important marketing and distribution tools.
Labor Senator Sam Dastyari says TPG must face a national interest test guaranteeing to protect independent journalism within the company’s media interests if it is successful. Dastyari plans to take up the issue with Treasurer Scott Morrison to determine what controls and restrictions could be placed on TPG if there was a change of ownership.
Independent of what, Sam? What bias is TPG going to bring?
Political and cultural? Management has already said it’s going to push editorial coverage to the right. God only knows why given the audience is centre-left. But editorial suicide is the firm’s prerogative.
Nationalistic? TPG is US-owned so no big deal unless you’re a China lacky.
The real concern is that it does what current management is already doing, throwing over all objectivity when it comes to buying houses. Listings are its business model now so editorial has been transformed into leverage-inducing pulp designed to dumb down and boosterise the endless purchase of houses as both personal and economic destiny. This includes hosing any other sector of the economy that gets in its way, like, for instance, anything tradable.
That’s the big threat to Fairfax “independence” but it’s long gone already. Letting TPG take over the mastheads would probably help make plain how ruinous the editorial already is.
Meanwhile, there’s no shortage of dumb money around!
Fairfax Media has received a competing bid from global private equity firm Hellman & Friedman.
The new bid was revealed by The Australian Financial Review’s Street Talk column.
From global private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, the bid is for a range of $1.225 to $1.25 per share, compared with the TPG consortium proposal of $1.20.
