The Commonwealth Bank of Australia appointed receivers PPB Advisory to Network Ten on Friday as Bruce Gordon, Lachlan Murdoch and James Packer guaranteed a refreshed loan facility to allow the free-to-air broadcaster to continue operating.
Mr Gordon, Mr Murdoch and Mr Packer's investment vehicles - Birketu, Illyria and Consolidated Press Holdings respectively - will guarantee an extra $30 million on top of the $97 million Ten had drawn down from its original $200 million loan, which was frozen when the company was put into administration.
The receiver facility will be worth $127 million with CBA.
Atanaskovic Hartnell had a crucial role in helping to find common ground between the bank and three separate parties.
The receivership, foreshadowed by The Australian Financial Review on Monday, will see PPB take control of the sale or recapitalisation process of Ten. PPB will supervise administrators KordaMentha.
Ten, the home of MasterChef and I'm a Celebrity ... Get Me Out of Here!, was put into voluntary administration on June 14 and soon after Mr Gordon and Mr Murdoch announced a joint-venture to restructure the ailing free-to-air broadcaster.
Ten's board of directors put the company into administration after it was notified Mr Gordon and Mr Murdoch would not back a $250 million loan to keep the company going.
The pair, along with James Packer, are guarantors on the existing $200 million facility for Ten from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia, which is due to expire and be repaid in December. Ten had been seeking a new $250 million loan to replace the existing one.
Mr Gordon and Mr Murdoch have signalled an interest in buying Ten, forming a joint-venture to restructure the troubled broadcaster. However, neither can buy Ten at this stage due to media ownership laws, which the government is trying to change.
Mr Gordon cannot buy Ten because of the "reach rule", which prevents a television network from broadcasting to more than 75 per cent of the population. Mr Murdoch cannot buy Ten because of the "two-out-of-three rule", which prevents the ownership of a newspaper, TV network and radio station in the same market.
Sources said New York hedge fund Anchorage Capital Group and Oaktree Capital Management had already contacted Ten and its financial advisers Moelis & Co prior to the network being put into administration.
Mr Gordon is Ten's largest shareholder and holds 15 per cent of the company, while Mr Murdoch holds 7.5 per cent. The pair have spent hundreds of millions of dollars investing in Ten, which stopped trading with a market capitalisation of just $59 million.
Sources say the government will keep negotiating with Pauline Hanson's One Nation, which has a voting bloc of four, to try to get the changes over the line.
Both Mr Murdoch and Mr Gordon have long coveted Ten. Mr Murdoch is a former acting chief executive and former chairman of Ten.
