British real estate portal Rightmove rejected on Monday a sweetened US$8.29 billion takeover proposal from Rupert Murdoch-owned Australian property listing firm REA Group, saying the fourth bid also undervalued the company.
Rightmove said its board, after taking into consideration the views of shareholders and considering representations from the REA chair and management team, had concluded that the latest proposal remained "unattractive" and "continues to materially undervalue Rightmove."
The British company also said that shareholder interests would be better served through the execution of its standalone strategic plan.
The latest proposal from REA Group, which is 62 per cent owned by Murdoch's News Corp, consisted of 346 pence in cash, 0.0417 new REA shares and a special dividend of 6 pence in cash. That gave Rightmove an implied value of 781 pence per share, an about 3.0 per cent increase over the previous bid.
REA did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.