How are Perpetual’s (ASX:PPL) shares faring today?

Highlights

• Perpetual’s shares were trading in the green today, up 0.701% at 11:16 AM AEDT.
• The company shared court process updates for the Pendal Group acquisition on 14 November.
• Perpetual has recently rejected a non-binding indicative offer from Regal Partners.

In the morning trade, shares of Australian investment group Perpetual Limited (ASX:PPT) were trading in the green territory, up 0.701% at AU$33 apiece at 11:16 AM AEDT, 15 November.

The firm recently rejected a new indicative offer to buy 100% of Perpetual shares, which was made by BPEA Private Equity Fund VIII and Regal Partners Limited (the consortium) on November 10.

The back-and-forth Scheme of Arrangement agreement between Perpetual and Pendal Group Limited (ASX:PDL) received updates from the court on 14 November. Perpetual has been attempting to acquire all of Pendal's issued shares pursuant to this Scheme of Arrangement since 25 August 2022.

The increase in Perpetual's shares was in line with today's positive performance for the S&P/ASX 200 Financials sector. At the time of writing, INDEXASX:XFJ was up 41.1 points at 6,523.1 points.

Details of Perpetual and Regal Partners’ non-binding proposal

On 3 November 2022, Regal Partners announced plans to buy 100% of the issued shares of Perpetual in a strategic alliance with Morello Pte. Limited, an indirect wholly owned subsidiary of BPEA Private Equity Fund VIII. In an unsolicited conditional, non-binding indicative proposal, Regal Partners Limited offered to pay Perpetual shareholders AU$30 in cash per share. Perpetual rejected this offer because the company felt it was not in the best interests of its shareholders.

Moving on to 10 November, Perpetual also rejected the revised indicative proposal submitted by Regal Partners on 8 November. According to the revised proposal, Regal Partners agreed on paying AU$33 cash per share to Perpetual holders with the following terms:

• Shareholders will receive a premium of 27.6% above the Perpetual shares' 1-day volume-weighted average price of AU$25.86 (November 2).
• Up to and including November 2, 2022, the shares' 30-day volume-weighted average price of A$24.32 will be increased by 35.7% for perpetual holders.
• Perpetual holders will also be entitled to a 10.0x EV/FY23 EBITDA This represents a premium of 38.9% over the three-year long-term average of Perpetual's matching one-year ahead EV/EBITDA multiple.

Talking about this dual rejection from the Perpetual board, Brendan O’Connor, managing director and CEO of Regal Partners, said:

Image Source: © 2022 Kalkine Media ® 
Data Source: Company announcement dated 10 November 2022

What’s happening with the Perpetual and Pendal Group deal?

It all began on 4 April 2022 when Perpetual presented an indicative proposal to purchase 100% of the shares of Pendal. The proposal stated that 7.5 Pendal shares would be exchanged for 1 Perpetual share, plus AU$1.67 in cash, for each Pendal share. The indicative value here is AU$6.23 per Pendal share based on the closing price of Perpetual shares on the ASX on 1 April 2022.

The proposal was later revised on 25 August as a Scheme Implementation Deed with improved AU$1.976 cash for each Pendal share in addition to 1 Perpetual share for every 7.3 Pendal shares.

Furthermore, under the speculations of Perpetual entering a partnership with Regal Partners, Pendal Group asked to postpone the first court hearing related to the Scheme Implementation Deed on 10 November. Perpetual announced a short deferral for the court hearing on the same day.

According to the ASX announcement on 14 November, both companies appeared in court for the first time on 11 November, and the judge ordered them to preside over the proceedings until November 16.