See text below.
Senior executives of a Singapore-government owned company have flown to Sydney with a view to buying a greater share of troubled childcare giant ABC Learning.
The Daily Telegraph can reveal investment company Temasek Holdings - which mainly invests in real estate and telecommunications - has sent executive Sheau Ming Lim and a team to Sydney, potentially to buy more of the world's largest childcare centre company.
The team will also finalise last week's $150 million purchase of shares in ABC Learning that increased its holding from 12.4 per cent to 14.7 per cent.
...
Temasek has stakes in Singapore Telecommunications, which owns Australia's second largest telco Optus.
It also part-owns Singapore Airways and Tiger Airways and has stakes in local property companies.
It will have to face the Foreign Investment Review Board if it wants to increase ABC stake above 15 per cent.
Industry experts said the increase in power to Temasek would further weigh on ABC founder Eddy Groves, who is this week in the US talking to investors about selling off major assets.
Following last week's sharemarket pelting, ABC said it was approached by a third party for talks about selling part of its business.
It is thought this involves the 1000-centre plus US business for ABC, which also has operations in the UK, Australia and New Zealand.
Shares of ABC Learning remain in a trading halt until it can lock in a deal.
Australian childcare expert Professor Deborah Brennan, of the University of NSW social policy centre, said yesterday ABC Learning was unique in global standards as it had a major foreign government shareholder.
"There certainly isn't any other country in the world that allows this kind of concentrated ownership in the hands of a single company," she said of ABC Learning's grip on more than 1000 Australian childcare centres.
She said there were "real problems" with ABC Learning's corporate model.
"My concern is just how vulnerable it makes Australian families and children to the fortunes of one company."
...
- reprinted from The Daily Telegraph