Texas billionaire David Bonderman takes home $1.5bn profit from Myer deal
By Jennifer Sexton The Sunday Telegraph November 22, 2009 12:01am
HE'S the genius behind one of Australia's most extraordinary business coups: a Texas billionaire who lives as large as he stands. Just two years after failing to get his hands on Qantas, the lanky maverick has pocketed a remarkable $1.5 billion profit by buying Myer, one of our best-loved retailers, at a bargain-basement price and flogging it back to the market at a premium.
David Bonderman, renowned as the "King of Buyouts'', has left the Australian Taxation Office scratching its head - and mum-and-dad investors shaking their heads, wondering where their cash went, The Sunday Telegraph reports.
The taxman wants $678 million in tax and penalties, and everyday investors want answers.
Within hours of the Jennifer Hawkins-hyped sell-off of Myer, the bounty controlled by Bonderman's TPG had disappeared.
Overnight, $1.5 billion was spirited out of Australian bank accounts to the Netherlands before being transferred to companies based in two notorious tax havens: the tiny European nation of Luxembourg and the the Caribbean's Cayman Islands.
And the 67-year-old mate of James Packer, who shares the Australian billionaire's penchant for buying into casinos, has pulled off the deal just 12 months after predicting a long, deep and painful recession.
While Bonderman and his equally colourful co-chairman, Dick Blum, quadrupled their investment in Myer, investors watched the stock plunge nine per cent when it listed. They're still waiting for the share price to hit the $4.10 they paid for their stock.
The deal has shades of TPG's buyout of British department store chain Debenhams. TPG and its partners made an almost fourfold return, while the value of Debenhams stock has since fallen by half.
Two weeks after the sell-off saga began to unfold, Australian authorities and the wider business community are still wondering what actually happened.
After the ATO raised the red flag, one Myer investor posted on the financial blog Hotcopper: "Yep ... the money's gone ... all da way to da CAYMAN ISLANDS!!!!! They came to Australia, made the quick big bucks and go without mercy and no social responsibility.''
MYR Price at posting:
$3.86 Sentiment: Sell Disclosure: Not Held
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