Babcock plays down rival RBS bid talk

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Debt-laden Australian asset manager Babcock & Brown Infrastructure (BBI.AX) urged investors to approve a $1.6 billion rescue plan backed by Canada's Brookfield group (BAMa.TO), saying no rival plan from Royal Bank of Scotland was on the table.

RBS (RBS.L) was putting together an A$1.5 billion (846 million pound) counterproposal which it planned to submit if the Brookfield (BIP.N) plan was voted down, the Australian Financial Review reported on Thursday, citing an unnamed RBS source.

BBI Chief Financial Officer Jonathon Sellar told Reuters there was strong support for the Brookfield plan, in which the Canadian group would buy BBI shares and assets to help the firm cut its near A$9 billion in debt and stave off insolvency.

"Our expectation is ordinary shareholders and (preference) holders will vote on Monday and vote for the transaction to go ahead," CFO Jonathon Sellar said.

"So far the voting trend we've seen is very, very positive," he said, with 98 percent so far in favour out of the 30 percent of the group's ordinary and preference shareholders (BEPPA.AX) who have voted.

Sellar said rumours of a transaction put together by RBS were just noise distracting shareholders from the vote on the Brookfield plan.

The AFR said RBS will give details of the bid if BBI investors reject Brookfield's plan. RBS was trying to get holders of BBI's preference shares, mostly hedge funds, to back its alternative plan, BBI said. RBS would be unlikely to put any of its own money into the plan, said a source outside RBS.

RBS, which acted on behalf of international hedge funds in two previous recapitalisation plans for BBI, declined comment.

RBS, majority owned by the UK government after almost collapsing during the financial crisis, has been selling most of its assets in the Asia-Pacific region to cut its debt and focus on its home market.