UPDATE: Cinven pulls out of £1.5bn takeover battle for Sanne

Sep 3, 2021 | FPEC, News

Private equity firm Cinven has bowed out of the potential bidding war to buy FTSE 250 asset manager Sanne Group.

London-based Cinven made a series of takeover offers for Sanne earlier this year, sweetening its final offer to 875p per share, valuing the firm at around £1.4 billion in June.

This offer was ultimately rejected by the board at Sanne.

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However, this was then topped by global financial services firm Apex Group in August.

Sanne offers an exciting opportunity to acquire a well-established alternative fund services provider with diverse and complementary jurisdictional and asset class expertise.

Apex’s board of directors agreed a 920p-per-share offer for Sanne, valuing the business at £1.51 billion.

UK takeover regulators had given Cinven a deadline to table a further offer or walk away from the move, with the company confirming on Friday that it will not table another bid.

The proposed takeover by Apex is the latest in a flurry of acquisitions in the UK in 2021, with a raft of mergers and acquisitions taking place across financial services, defence, healthcare and retail.

Jersey-based Sanne provides outsourcing services to nearly 2,000 clients, ranging from private debt to capital markets, and recorded a 12% increase in earnings last year.

Upon agreeing its takeover offer, Apex chief executive Peter Hughes said: “Sanne offers an exciting opportunity to acquire a well-established alternative fund services provider with diverse and complementary jurisdictional and asset class expertise.”

Shareholders at Sanne will vote on the deal at a general meeting and the move is set to complete in the first half of 2022.

Source: Yahoo Finance

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