Perpetual has received a second revised bid from private equity giant EQT as it tries to acquire the company.
Perpetual said in an ASX announcement on 27 July that it had received a revised non-binding, conditional and indicative proposal from Windflower Pte, an entity understood to be associated with EQT.
The revised bid increased the offer by 2 per cent from $22.07 to $22.50 cash per share, which brings the value to $2.65 billion.
This is the second revision after an earlier one on 15 July which raised it from the original bid at the start of July for $21.64 to $22.07.
Shares in the company are up 24 per cent over the past month in light of the EQT bids.
Perpetual said: “The further indicative proposal is subject to numerous conditions including satisfactory completion of due diligence, negotiation and execution of binding transaction documentation, regulatory approvals and other customary conditions. It is also conditional on completion of the sale of Perpetual’s Wealth Management business to Bain Capital.
“The Perpetual board is assessing the further indicative proposal with the assistance of its financial and legal advisers. The board has not yet formed a view on the merits of the further indicative proposal and no recommendation is being made to shareholders at this time.
“The Perpetual board remains confident in Perpetual executing its strategy, including its simplification program, the value of its diversified earnings profile (provided by the Corporate Trust and Asset Management businesses) and the execution of the sale of Wealth Management.”
Headquartered in Stockholm and founded in 1994, EQT is the world’s second-largest private equity firm behind KKR. EQT previously tried to acquire Perpetual in 2022 via a consortium with Regal Partners for $30 per share, but this deal fell through.
In January, EQT acquired Australian private markets manager Coller Capital which will form part of EQT’s new secondaries business segment alongside its existing private capital and real assets segments but the origination and investment process will remain independent.
This is not the first time the firm has received private equity interest as it has been in the process over the past two years of trying to divest its wealth management and corporate trust division.
Originally, this was due to be sold to KKR but the deal officially fell through over taxation costs which then re-opened the bidding process and eventually, Bain Capital (which also tried to acquire Insignia Financial) was named as the successful bidder with a $550 million bid.
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