Exor, the Agnelli family's investment vehicle, has increased its $6.8 bilion hostile takeover bid for reinsurance firm PartnerRe,
the
Financial Times
reported.
In June, PartnerRe rejected Exor's offer of $137.50 per share, which was increased from the original offer of $130 per share, the
FT
article said. PartnerRe prefers a merger of equals with Axis, which was announced in January.
Exor's CEO, John Elkann, on July 7 announced “a series of enhancements to the terms Exor was offering, including an increase in the dividend rate on the company's three series of preferred shares — which account for about 40 per cent of the votes — and a promise not to buy them back for at least another six years,” the article said. “He also pledged to pay the break fee straight back to common shareholders, effectively increasing the offer to $143,89 a share, and added a ‘go-shop provision, which would give PartnerRe a month to solicit a higher offer if investors backed a deal with Exor.”
The
FT
report noted, “Exor's all-cash bid is the biggest attempted by the Agnelli family holding company, and comes as Mr. Elkann — a great-great grandson of Giovanni Agnelli, the founder of Fiat — attempts to diversify from industrials into financial services.”
Exor's stake in PartnerRe “is now just shy of the 10 per cent threshold that would trigger a poison pill defence, making [Exor] PartnerRe's biggest individual shareholder,” the article said. (Source:
Financial Times
, July 8, 2015.)
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