Australia's Healthscope gets $3.3 bln bid from Brookfield
(Adds details of proposals)
May 14 (Reuters) - Australian hospital operator Healthscope Ltd on Monday said it received a A$4.35 billion ($3.3 billion) proposal from Canada's Brookfield Asset Management Inc , $180 million more than a private equity firm offered it in April.
The A$2.50 per share offer is at a 1.2 percent premium to Healthscope's last close on Friday, and a 23.2 percent premium to its closing price before it received the $3.1 billion offer from BGH Capital and its consortium partners last month.
Brookfield plans to let existing Healthscope shareholders invest alongside it in a privatised Healthscope, potentially giving them a “significant minority position” in the company, Healthscope said in a statement.
The Healthscope board is continuing its assessment of the BGH-consortium proposal and has now started an assessment of the Brookfield proposal, it said.
Last week, Canadian landlord NorthWest Healthcare Properties REIT announced a $312 million strategic investment in Healthscope, acquiring 10 percent of the company as part of a plan to buy its real estate.
($1 = 1.3247 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Chris Thomas in Bengaluru; Editing by Stephen Coates)
