The founder of a second investment firm in Pacific Current Group’s stable went public on Monday with a demand that the fund manager’s board explain why it never told shareholders about a takeover bid from one of its own portfolio companies, pitched at $12.56 a share.
Pacific Current, listed on the Australian Securities Exchange, invests in boutique fund managers. In August it told the market it had received a takeover offer from River Capital, its major shareholder. What the board did not disclose, the Australian Financial Review’s Street Talk column revealed, was that a second bid had already been lodged by Roc Partners, the firm run by Michael Lukin that itself sits in Pacific Current’s portfolio.
The pressure has grown since revelations that the board, led by its chairman, Justin Arter, may not have disclosed conflicts of interest relating to a takeover bid, the newspaper reported on Monday.
The new salvo comes from the founder of Astarte Capital Partners, a London-based alternative investment manager in which Pacific Current holds a minority stake. The founder joins Roc’s own Mr. Lukin, who last month accused the Pacific Current board of keeping shareholders in the dark about his offer while quietly giving a rival bidder a leg-up.
Pacific Current rejected Roc’s approach in early September, calling it a non-binding, indicative proposal that fell below its assessment of fair value. The board has otherwise stayed quiet: the River Capital offer it chose to announce, and the $12.56 Roc bid it did not, both remain undisclosed in full to the investors caught between them.