Westpac Offer For RAMS Best Deal, Says Expert

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FAILURE to sell the most valuable part of the ailing RAMS Home Loans business to Westpac for $140 million would result in the lender being rendered effectively worthless, its shareholders were warned yesterday.

Investors were told by an independent expert, Deloitte Corporate Finance, that Westpac’s offer to buy the group’s brand and franchise operations was at the top end of a “hypothetical” range of values put on RAMS of between $35.6 million and $167.5 million.

As a result, Deloitte declared that shareholders should accept the bid as being in their best interests. At the same time, the company’s directors, led by the chairman, John Kinghorn, who reaped $650 million from its floating just three months ago, indicated that if the deal is knocked back at next month’s annual meeting, RAMS’s funding problems could destroy what value was left.

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