Yet another takeover offer for Link Group has fallen over as the group of investors led by the Pacific Equity Partners and the US Carlyle group dropped the non-binding offer to take over Link and departed the arena.
Link’s board had rejected the $2.8 billion offer to buy 100% of the company’s shares last October, claiming it materially under-valued the company but did open its books and records to the consortium hoping to encourage a higher offer
More than six months later no such luck and no offer.
Link shares naturally fell yesterday with the lack of any bidders quite apparent. the shares lost 6.2% to end the day at $4.95, 20 cents or so above the start of the year level of $4.79.
The private equity consortium first bid $5.20 a share but later raised its offer to $5.40 but in the end there was no dosh.
Shares in Link Group fell 13.5% in a day at the start of January after an earlier bidder, the US group SS&C Technologies Holdings shelved its $5.65 cents a share offer, leaving the consortium of private equity buyers as the only remaining bidder for the share registry and its prized stake in an electronic conveyancing firm.
SS&C Technologies Holdings dropped its $3 billion suggested offer and departed less than a month after starting due diligence.
The real prize in Link is the 44% stake in property settlements platform PEXA. The consortium had valued this stake at around $2 billion.
Link said in a statement on Wednesday it had received “non-binding indications of interest” from an undisclosed number of parties that valued the PEXA stake higher than $1.95 billion.
The company is now in the process of shortlisting potential buyers and will have a formal list of offers by June.
“Both the trade sale process and exploration of the viability of an IPO continue to progress positively,” Link said.
PEXA’s shareholders are actively considering an initial public offering for the company.
To get their hands on PEXA, a bidder or bidders would have to get control of all of Link and it seems they wanted to sell off the non-PEXA businesses, such as superannuation administration, and keep control of the still evolving property settlements business which has only one other competitor at the moment – the Simpli platform that is being supported by ASX Ltd and Intrack.
