MYSTERY BUYER REVEALED
MELBOURNE retail kingpin Solomon Lew has been confirmed as the buyer of a major stake in Australia’s biggest department store chain.
A notice lodged with the stock exchange yesterday reveals Mr Lew ( pictured) has snapped up a 10.8 per cent stake in Myer through his fashion house Premier Investments.
The notice confirms it was Premier Investments that made an audacious raid on Myer shares on Monday. It has spent $ 101.3 million buying 88.4 million shares. Mr Lew is already a force in the Australian retail sector as chairman and cornerstone investor of Premier, which owns a suite of chains including Smiggle, Peter Alexander, Just Jeans and Jay Jays.
In a statement, Premier said it had made a strategic investment in Myer and “does not currently intend to make a takeover offer” for Myer.
Premier can buy up to 20 per cent of Myer stock without having to lodge a formal takeover offer.
Mr Lew owns 40 per cent of Premier. The revelation yesterday means he has rekindled his relationship with Myer in dramatic fashion.
Mr Lew has a long history with Myer, dating back to his time in the 1960s as a supplier to the retailer.
In the 1990s, he was chairman of and a major investor in then parent company Coles Myer.
He paid $ 1.15 a share in late trade on Monday – a 6.5 per cent premium to the $ 1.08 shares were changing hands for just prior to the raid.
The purchase drove an 18.3 per cent surge in the price of Myer shares that day – the biggest single- day rally for the group since it was listed as a stand- alone company in 2009.
Famously coy about his investment strategies, Mr Lew has not revealed why he has bought into Myer.
He previously held major stakes in David Jones and Country Road, snaring a healthy premium on the market price for both investments when he sold out to South African retail group Woolworths Holdings.
Industry experts have said that based on his history with those retailers, he may simply sit on his stake in Myer rather than build his holding with a view to a buyout.
Mr Lew was widely rumoured to be the Myer raider, although analysts had said it could also have conceivably been Woolworths Holdings – which is unrelated to its Australian namesake – and fellow South African retailers Edcon and Steinhoff International.
Edcon is led by former Myer chief Bernie Brookes, while Steinhoff International owns Best & Less and Harris Scarfe.
The trade was executed by Mr Lew’s long- time broker Blue Ocean Equities and clearing house Pershing Securities.
Both have executed trades for Mr Lew in the past, including when he bought into David Jones in 2014 as it was being targeted by South Africa’s Woolworths Holdings.
Mr Lew had repeatedly dismissed suggestions he might move on Myer.