I would have thought that the sector is such that it would be very unlikely for ACCC to block anything. Simply because there is no barriers for entry for new entrants. Anybody can buy land and build retirement village wherever they want. Mergers/acquisition should not reduce competition in relation to consumers (buyers of retirement units). As these are dictated by real estate market and are not set by operators.
I admit I am not an expert on anti-competition legislation this but I think absence of barrier for new entrants alone criteria should be sufficient for almost any merger/acq to pass.
Slightly deviating from your question, I think the larger players like LLC and SGP are very interested in retirement sector because they have access to land releases, and this synergy allows them to purchase and develop the right land in the right location. (Not to mention DMF model is highly lucrative cash flow wise).
For the same reason, retirement assets are not everybody's cup of tea, for example I wouldn't think a generic REIT like DXS would even look at this. May be MGR or ALZ if they had spare cash but not likely. Having said that, ABP has a small retirement portfolio, so who knows?
In regards to PTN, my thoughts are highly speculative, please treat with caution. I just think that anything trading at 15c with assets of 50c will get gobbled up. Worst case, they will sell assets as they need the cash, but looks like they should hang on (may be with cap raising).
Cheers
LLP Price at posting:
29.5¢ Sentiment: None Disclosure: Held
