An improved offer yesterday by AMP Ltd and France's AXA SA for AXA Asia Pacific Holdings would probably succeed, Craigs Investment Partners broker Chris Timms said.
AMP and AXA SA have increased their joint offer for AXA Asia by 16.4% to $A12.85 billion ($NZ16.14 billion) and given the target seven days to accept the bid.
Mr Timms previously said for the offer to succeed, the total price had to have an $A6 in front of it.
AMP, together with AXA SA, which was the majority owner of AXA Asia, yesterday announced they had increased the cash portion of the offer to a fixed $A1.92 ($NZ2.41) per share from a variable $A1.38.
The new offer values each AXA Asia share about $A6.216, based on AMP's closing share price on Friday, compared with the previous offer's implied value of $A5.34 a share or $A11.04 billion.
Based on AXA Asia's closing price on Friday of $A5.82, the new offer represents a premium of 6.8%.
But it is a 45% premium on the $A4.30 closing price on November 6, the Friday before the original takeover offer was announced.
Mr Timms said the increased offer reflected the desire of AMP and AXA SA to own the business, but there could still be a bit more left in the offer price.
AXA Asia was set to benefit from the economic recovery after a torrid time in the past two years.
It derived income from investments as well as insurance.
The offer was "reasonable", given where the share price had been recently.
AXA Asia shares reached a low of $A2.52 on March 3 but had been as high as $A8.30 in October 2007.
Any improvement in the offer would depend on how badly AMP and AXA SA wanted the business, he said.
The scrip portion of the offer, of 0.6896 of an AMP share per AXA APH share, remained unchanged.
"The transaction would deliver significant value to both AXA Asia and AMP shareholders and create a larger, more competitive home-grown wealth management company focused on growing its business through meeting the needs of Australian and New Zealand customers," AMP chief executive Craig Dunn said in a statement.
"This acquisition would give the merged entity significant scale and efficiency in core markets, broaden its advice footprint and distribution, and create the fifth pillar in a new financial services landscape."
AMP wants to cement its place as Australia's biggest superannuation services provider and fend off the competitive pressure being applied by the big four banks, which have moved aggressively to grow in the wealth industry.
AXA SA is considering the growth potential in Asia, and wants to take full control of its strategy there.
If the bid is successful, AXA SA will transfer its holding in AXA Asia to AMP, which will transfer AXA Asia's Asian assets to AXA SA while keeping the Australian and New Zealand assets.
AMP and AXA SA said the revised offer was final and have given AXA Asia independent directors until December 21 to recommend the proposal.
AXA Asia chairman Rick Allert said the independent board committee intended to take appropriate time to carefully consider the revised proposal and would provide an update to the market when the assessment was completed.
AXA Asia said the revised proposal valued its Australian and New Zealand assets about $A4.41 billion and its Asian business about $A9.63 billion.
