Perpetual has received a bid from European private equity giant EQT to acquire the company via a scheme of arrangement.
In an ASX announcement late on 1 July, having been in a trading halt during the day after shares rallied 16 per cent, the firm said it had received an unsolicited, non-binding, conditional and indicative proposal from Windflower Pte Ltd.
This is understood to be an entity indirectly controlled by Swedish private equity giant EQT which has $446 billion in assets under management.
However, the board of Perpetual said it rejected the deal as it failed to represent adequate shareholder value.
The bid at $21.64 cash per share values Perpetual at $2.5 billion.
“Under the terms of the indicative proposal, Perpetual shareholders would have received A$21.64 cash per share (reduced by the value of any dividends, capital returns or distributions declared or paid by the company),” the firm said in a statement.
“The indicative proposal was highly conditional and did not adequately represent fair value for Perpetual shareholders in the context of a change of control transaction and the board determined that it was not in the best interests of Perpetual shareholders.”
Shares in Perpetual, which has $227 billion in assets under management and is led by chief executive Bernard Reilly, are down 2.2 per cent over one year to 1 July versus gains of 2 per cent by the ASX 200.
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 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.
In its quarterly update for the three months to 31 March, total assets under management (AUM) were $219 billion, a 3.6 per cent decrease compared to $227.5 billion at the end of 2025, and the result of $3.6 billion in unfavourable currency markets and outflows. In asset management, some $2.9 billion in outflows were driven by JO Hambro and Barrow Hanley boutiques, both affected on its global equity strategies.
Reilly said: “The business has been resilient through what continues to be a highly volatile period in global equity and economic markets. In asset management, our assets under management (AUM) were impacted by a stronger Australian dollar relative to US and UK currencies, declining markets, and net outflows.
“Our Australian boutiques continued to perform well, both reporting net inflows for the quarter in Australian equities, cash, and fixed income strategies.”
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