Amber raises takeover price to €11 per share

Applus

Battle for Applus: Amber increases its offer to 11 euros and Apollo already reaches 19.91% of the capital

A new step in the fight for Applus. Funds SSI and TDRthrough their joint venture Amber, have improved their takeover offer for Applus from €9.75 per share to €11 per share, which is higher than the €10.65 offered by their competitor, American Apollo Foundation. The new price proposed by Amber values ​​Applus at €1.420 million, some €140 million more than the original offer.

Amber reported this to the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) after learning that the Council of Ministers had decided at its meeting on January 30 to authorize without any conditions the takeover bid for the Spanish company Applus, an authorization that is required on an unconditional basis until approval of the CNMV operation.

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

Amber, which will now send the terms of its new offer to the CNMV, also informed the supervisor that it will reduce the minimum condition for accepting its takeover offer from 75% to 50% of the share capital of Applus plus one share, i.e. 64,537,067 shares of the Spanish company ITV.

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, signing several purchase and sale contracts worth up to 21.85% of the Spanish company’s capital.

Apollo reaches 19.91%

For its part, Apollo, through its tool company Manzana Spain BidCo, this Friday proceeded to acquire 25.7 million shares of Applus+ at a price per share of 10.65 euros, representing 19.91% of the company’s share capital, after the CNMV authorized it. Friday changing the characteristics of its takeover bid.

The acquisition of the remaining 2.5 million Applus+ shares, representing 1.94% of its share capital, is in progress but has not been completed for operational reasons. Manzana Spain BidCo will announce this acquisition as soon as it is completed.

Apollo is now expected to freeze its acquired Applus+ shares until the offer is settled. Once the immobilization of the said shares has been accredited by the CNMV, the offer will effectively be directed to the remaining Applus+ shares.

Apollo’s improved offer was announced on January 24 following the announcement of the signing of share purchase contracts for Applus+ to acquire up to 28.2 million shares of the company, representing 21.85% of its share capital, at a price of 10.65. euros per share.

The maximum payout for this shareholding will be €300.3 million and the signing of the above-mentioned contracts implies that the price of the voluntary takeover offer for 100% of Applus+ announced by Apollo will automatically increase to €10.65 per document compared to the previous one. 9.5 euros.