MADRID, 29 Abr. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) has provisionally suspended, with immediate effect, the trading of Applus shares “due to circumstances that could disrupt the normal development of operations in the aforementioned financial instruments.”
The supervisor already suspended Applus’s trading last Friday for around an hour after the Apollo funds (through its instrumental company Manzana Spain Bidco) and ISQ and TDR (through its Amber EquityCo consortium) raised their takeover bids. (OPA) on the company up to 12.51 and 12.78 euros per share, respectively.
The company’s shares closed on Friday at 12.74 euros, 10% above their Thursday price.
Both Apollo, ISQ and TDR had until 12:00 p.m. last Friday to deliver in a sealed envelope to the CNMV their decision on whether they would maintain or improve their offers presented so far.
Specifically, Apollo raised its takeover bid on Applus to 12.51 euros per share, which represents an improvement of 17.46% over the 10.65 euros it previously offered, while ISQ and TDR improved their proposal to 12.78. euros, 16.18% more than the previous 11 euros.
In this way, Apollo’s offer values 100% of Applus at 1,614.7 million euros, while ISQ and TDR do so at almost 1,650 million euros.
After opening the sealed envelopes with the new offers, the CNMV suspended Applus’s trading on Friday, around 1:30 p.m., which returned to the market approximately an hour later.
In this context, the organization detailed that the modifications of both offers “will be processed if they meet the established requirements” and, to do so, both bidders must accredit to the CNMV the complementary guarantee that corresponds to the modification presented in the following three business days. that is, until next May 3 (May 1 and 2 are holidays in Madrid).
“The period for accepting competing offers will restart after the publication of the announcements referred to in article 22 of Royal Decree 1066/2007, once the modifications to the offers are authorized, and will be announced on the website of the CNMV,” added the regulator.
In this context, the CNMV recalled that Apollo’s offer delivered in the sealed envelope last Friday did not meet the necessary condition for the fund, which was the one that first launched the takeover bid for Applus (on June 30, 2023), to be able to make a final proposal once the aforementioned envelopes have been opened.
To have been able to have this option, the offer proposed by Apollo in the sealed envelope would have had to be less than 2% lower than that of ISQ and TDR, that is, it should have been at least 12.5244 euros.
Likewise, if Apollo’s offer had reached the aforementioned threshold and it wanted to make a final proposal, it would have to improve the ISQ and TDR by 1%, that is, it would have to have been raised to at least 12 .90 euros.
