Amber improves Apollo offer and raises Applus takeover price to €11 per share

The ISQ and TDR funds, through their joint venture Amber, have improved the takeover offer (OPA) of Applus. from 9.75 euros per share to 11 euros per title. This figure exceeds the 10.65 euros offered by its rival, the US fund Apollo.

Amber reported this to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV), having learned that The Council of Ministers, at its meeting on January 30, decided to allow the takeover bid for the Spanish company Applus without any conditions.authorization, which is required before the CNMV approves the operation, .

New price from Amber means a valuation of Applus of 1.420 million euros, According to Europa Press, this is about 140 million euros more than the original offer.

(Apollo signs contracts to buy 21.85% of Applus and raises the price of its takeover offer to €10.65 per share)

This increase in the price of Amber’s takeover offer for Applus to €11 is in turn a response to improving the offer recently implemented by its competitor Apollo to 10.65 euros per title.. Precisely, the takeover bid for Apollo received the approval of the CNMV this Friday.

Amber, who will now send the terms of her new offer to the CNMV, also told the boss that she would cut minimum condition for accepting a takeover offer of 75% to 50% of the share capital of Applus plus one sharethat is, 64,537,067 shares of the Spanish company ITV.

Aplus Capital

The US fund, which is competing with Amber to acquire Applus, has made a number of moves in recent days to secure some of Applus’ capital through signing of several purchase and sale agreements for up to 21.85% of the capital of the Spanish company.

As part of these contracts and through its instrumental company Manzana Spain BidCo Apollo this Friday acquired 25.7 million shares of Applus at a price of 10.65 euros per share, representing 19.91% of the company’s share capital.

(Apollo, KKR, CVC and twenty other funds have over half a billion in dry powder to invest in 2024)

The acquisition of the remaining 2.5 million shares of Applus, corresponding to 1.94% of its share capital, is in processbut, according to Apollo, it has not yet been completed due to operational reasons.

Apollo is expected to freeze its acquired Applus shares until the offering is settled. Once the CNMV receives accreditation to immobilize these shares, the offer will effectively target the remaining Applus shares.

Apollo’s improved offering was announced on January 24. following the announcement of the signing of share purchase agreements in Applus for the acquisition of up to 28.2 million shares of the company, representing 21.85% of its share capital, at a price of €10.65 per share.

The maximum payout for this block of shares will be 300.3 million euros and the signing of the above-mentioned contracts implies that the price of Apollo’s voluntary takeover offer for 100% of Applus will automatically rise to €10.65 per share from the previous €9.5.