Primary's comments inaccurate: Symbion

Tegan Fleming

Symbion released a statement defending itself against several comments made by Primary, including claims of significant value leakage, loss of flexibility for Symbion shareholders and low transaction certainty due to the need to obtain tax rulings.

Primary also said the revised proposal was "clearly inferior to Primary’s alternate proposal and the original scheme".

"By blocking the original proposal and now criticising the revised proposal, Primary appears to be seeking to prevent Symbion shareholders as a whole from obtaining the benefits of such a proposal," Symbion said in a statement.

Symbion has also announced its rejection of a proposal from Primary for Primary to acquire Symbion’s medical centres business and selected parts of Symbion’s pathology and radiology businesses.

"Symbion’s Board has carefully considered Primary’s proposal and has determined that it is not in the best interests of Symbion shareholders.

"In addition, Primary’s proposal expressly requires the agreement of Healthscope as well as Symbion and Primary. In the last 24 hours, Healthscope has indicated (both publicly and directly to Symbion) that it is not prepared to agree to Primary’s proposal as it wants to acquire the entire diagnostics business owned by Symbion," Symbion said in a statement.