At around 1 pm in the boardroom of the Seven Media Group in Sydney’s Pyrmont, Kerry Stokes and David Leckie will walk staff through the about-to-be approved Seven Network Ltd-WesTrac merger that is now over the line, apart from the formal vote on April 20. Crikey can reveal Stokes’ good news comes after a concerted campaign of aggressive lobbying behind the scenes from the Seven-Stokes camp to sell the deal to independent fund managers and the business media, especially in Sydney and Melbourne.

The bruising campaign to list Stokes’ privately-owned, indebted Caterpillar tractor business, WesTrac, through a merger with his 49% owned Seven Network Ltd, will now happen after an agreement with two major institutional shareholders who had stood in the way of success.

The next stage in the evolution of his business empire will be complete, his major non listed asset, WesTrac, will end up in the Seven Group, which will be an unwieldy conglomerate of earthmoving machines, TV stations and magazines, wireless networks and other technology, newspapers, Pay TV and listed investments.

The success of the deal follows an at times narky campaign from the Seven-Stokes camp to sell the deal to independent fund managers and the business media.

The proposed deal has been generating a lot of commentary in investment and media circles and so have reports of the aggressive defence of the proposal by the Seven camp and its advisers.

Seven and Stokes camp have been aggressive in complaining to some media outlets, such as Crikey, Business Spectator, The Sydney Morning Herald and some broking analysts and others for comments made or written criticising the deal or highlighting its perceived inadequacies. Some of the complaints appear to have been justified, others have been questionable and perhaps counter productive.

At one point analysts received toy Caterpillar machines as part of the campaign to win their hearts, minds and recommendations. Reports claimed that some analysts said the toys were especially aimed at female analysts with children.

Seven is justified in asking for corrections and amplifications, but not on issues of differing opinions, especially where the people making them have a standing in the investment or media businesses.

Some of the tactics of Seven and its advisers would be seen as heavy handed and would have been resisted by Mr Stokes and Seven management if it was seen as an attempt to pressure the Network over the reporting of its newsrooms around the country, Today Tonight or Sunday Night programs.

And the current commentary has been nowhere as negative as the attacks from the market and the media on Macquarie Bank in the past two years, or on the bank and its partners and their handling of Sydney Airport, or of the Macquarie Bank-led to takeover Qantas.

Mixed up in the Seven-WesTrac deal is Sydney corporate relations group, Third Person. They are handling the spin for the deal and very neatly neutered The Australian Financial Review and The Australian by handing out well-timed exclusive interviews with Kerry Stokes. It has been left to the Fairfax broadsheets, the Sydney Morning Herald and the  Melbourne Age and some brokers and financial newsletters, to question the deal’s logic.

Sydney analyst, Mike Mangan was pressured by Seven, as the SMH reported:

The fund manager Mike Mangan has accused the Seven Network of strong-arm tactics after he recommended Seven shareholders vote against plans to merge Kerry Stokes’s mining services and media interests.

Mr Mangan, of 2MG Asset Management, is the first prominent Seven Network shareholder to speak out against the deal.

”It’s a question of price,” he told BusinessDay. ”In my view this is a negotiation.”

Mr Mangan’s comments come after he wrote a piece titled ”Reasons to oppose Stokes’ plan” for the financial website Business Spectator on Monday in which he said ”minority shareholders should send a clear ‘no’ signal to Kerry Stokes in the vote on the Seven-WesTrac deal”.

The article was removed on Monday ”on legal advice”, Alan Kohler, the site’s editor-in-chief, told BusinessDay.

In the piece, Mr Mangan expressed concerns about the 90-day termination period for WesTrac’s Caterpillar dealership and further concerns about the valuation range provided by the independent expert.

It is understood Seven highlighted accuracy concerns about Mr Mangan’s piece. At a meeting with Seven officials on Tuesday night after the piece had been removed, Mr Mangan said he told Seven he believed the deal would get up ”at the right price”.

”In my meeting, Seven said it’s not a negotiation, it’s a take it or leave it deal,” he said. ”I disagree.”

He’s not alone in the market in thinking that the deal undervalues the Seven Network and helps Kerry Stokes’ private interests more than the those of the 51% holders of Seven  network shares.

If Mr Stokes wasn’t a shareholder in Seven, the Seven Network would not make him an offer for WesTrac — it’s that simple. There’s just no synergy, fit or whatever financial measure you choose to use.

But the ongoing muttering and sniping at the proposal seems to be taking a toll, as does the defence tactics by the Seven camp. The Seven Network share price has never reached the $8.70 a share valuation suggested by the deal in its original form. It’s the market telling Seven and Mr Stokes investors don’t like the transaction, have no real confidence in the future of Seven Group Holdings, especially the still tenuous link with Caterpillar.

Part of the problem for the market is the disbelief at a key reason for the deal, as expressed by the Seven independent directors, led by Mr Ritchie, about the deal ending the so-called ‘holding company discount’ that Seven shares have.

The bottom line is this deal is a related party transaction with Mr Stokes the major beneficiary. He gets more control over Seven Network, gets WesTrac into a listed public company, gets $600 million or so of debt in WesTrac repaid with Seven Network cash (that was raised from the sale of 47% of Seven Media Group to KKR, and then the joint venture was geared up with billions of dollars of debt).

But the way the latest part of the deal was leaked to business media was as good example as any of the way the advisers to the Stokes camp have spun the story from the start. The deal was in every outlet this morning, including the Sydney Morning Herald, which with the Melbourne Age, has been more critical of the transaction and its underlying rationale.