Surfwear giant Billabong has confirmed it is now the subject of a bidding war between the Sycamore consortium and a new, surprise suitor.
As previously reported on ragtrader.com.au, Billabong last month confirmed it is the subject of a $527 million takeover bid by a consortium led by former executive Paul Naude.
The $1.10 per share takeover bid was confidential and non-binding and Billabong advised on December 24 that the Sycamore consortium would be granted the opportunity to conduct non-exclusive due diligence.
However, Billabong has now revealed that it has received another – equivalent – indicative, non-binding and conditional proposal. The latest offer comes from a consortium comprising Altamont Capital Partners and VF Corporation to acquire all of the shares in the company for $1.10 cash per share.
VF, which owns the Timberland, Lee, The North Face, Vans and Kipling clothing brands, has also been granted the opportunity to conduct non-exclusive due diligence by the Billabong board.
The company said its latest proposal is “subject to due diligence and conditional on a number of other matters equivalent to those in the Sycamore consortium proposal”.
In addition, Billabong said that it will now run a process to evaluate whether a change of control proposal, at a price and on terms that the board would recommend, can be secured. This process is expected to take approximately six weeks.
The board of Billabong also reiterated that there is no guarantee that an acceptable binding proposal will be forthcoming from either the Sycamore consortium or the Altamont/VF consortium.