Six months ago, in the midst of the ARN and Anchorage Capital Partners bid to takeover SCA, Australian Community Media (ACM) entered the scene with a proposal to merge with SCA, ostensibly to thwart ARN and ACP’s ambitions of acquiring it. That proposal was rejected.

In an ASX release today SCA have said that ACM have come back with the same, but “materially different” offer for SCA to again acquire its print, digital news and agriculture publications and the very interesting partnerships ACM shares with Champion Data and Play HQ, which provide live scores, ladders and match content for the national AFL, NRL and A-League competitions (Champion Data) and local and grass roots sporting data and scores (Play HQ). These would be a very handy addition to SCA’s Triple M Network, which is what ARN, in their alternative offer once Anchorage pulled out, is particularly interested in.

Discussions are in the early stages between ACM and SCA, but SCA have not definitively ruled out this proposal, like they did almost immediately to ARN’s new indicative one. If this is a value add to SCA you would think that ARN would then be asked to offer more for the transaction, which, without ACM being involved, ARN seem reluctant to do or to revise.

The stalemate continues, just with more parties involved now.