Deadline set for challenge to Ten takeover

Any Ten Network shareholders seeking to oppose the broadcaster's takeover by CBS have until Friday to lodge a notice with the Supreme Court.

Lachlan Murdoch and Bruce Gordon have until Friday to lodge their opposition to the takeover of the Ten Network by US giant CBS.

The administrators of the struggling free-to-air broadcaster have notified its shareholders that the process to gain court approval for the transfer of Ten shares to CBS begins on October 16, and a hearing is tentatively set down for October 31.

Any shareholders who want to oppose the application for the transfer of all Ten's shares to CBS have until 1600 AEDT on October 13 to notify the Supreme Court in Sydney, KordaMentha said.

The CBS takeover, worth more than $40 million, trumped a competing offer from billionaire Ten shareholders Mr Murdoch and Mr Gordon, and was accepted by Ten's creditors in September.

Mr Gordon failed with a court bid to derail the CBS deal, and was reportedly preparing an appeal of that decision.

Ahead of the court hearing to approve the CBS takeover, KPMG has evaluated Ten's business to ensure shareholders are not being disadvanted by the CBS deal, in which the US broadcaster will pay nothing for Ten's shares.

KPMG said Ten's shares are worthless, as the net value of Ten's business operations is far outweighed by the value of its outstanding content contracts with CBS and Twentieth Century Fox.

KPMG said Ten's business would need to have a net value of $646.9 million in order for its shares to have any value, well above the $112 million it was worth under the best case scenario KPMG applied to its analysis.


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Published 10 October 2017 7:34pm
Source: AAP


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