An alternative offer to Silver Lake, valuing New Zealand Rugby at a colossal $3.8 billion, has been tabled by local investment manager Forsyth Barr.
The Auckland head-quartered company has conducted due diligence on the prospect of NZR selling a five per cent stake in its future commercial revenues through an NZX listing and believes investor demand could potentially raise as much as $650m.
Under the terms of the Forsyth proposal – conducted at the request of the New Zealand Rugby Players' Association which is not supportive of selling a stake in the national game to US fund manager Silver Lake - NZR would be able to raise between $170m and $190m, with as much as 40 per cent of the offering being open to mum and dad investors who could buy in for as little as $100.
Forsyth managing director Neil Paviour-Smith says that his firm are willing to underwrite the deal as a number of significant fund management houses and high net worth New Zealanders have already indicated they would make significant investments.
Such a deal would, therefore, be deemed low risk and value NZR at between $3.4bn and $3.8bn, which is 12 per cent to 23 per cent higher than the valuation offered by Silver Lake.
The Silver Lake deal, for which NZR has received the backing of provincial unions to proceed, will raise $387.5m and see the US group take 12.5 per cent of net revenue.
The NZRPA have been strongly opposed to the deal, with its president, former All Black captain David Kirk, also chairman of Forsyth Barr.
David told Si and Phil there has been no breach of trust.
"Rugby's going to change forever in New Zealand. The thought that we wouldn't discuss and debate the various options that are available to do that, it's just nonsensical."
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