Busy week ahead at the mall
General Growth has a busy week ahead.
The No. 2 U.S. mall owner is weighing a $5.8 billion takeover bid from its larger rival, Simon Property.
It postponed a hearing in bankruptcy court to Friday to have a ‘stalking horse’ bid approved, which would set the floor for future offers for the company.
General Growth has so far favored a bid led by Brookfield Asset Management to help it exit bankruptcy, choosing it over another offer by Simon to come in as a passive investor and buy a minority stake in the company.
But it still has to figure out whether Simon’s offer to buy all of the company makes sense. The latest postponement of the hearing — the third time it has done so – could be a sign it is doing just that.
When Simon put in a bid, it wanted it to be a slam dunk. It offered $18.25 per share for all of General Growth on Sunday, more than double its initial takeover offer of $9 per share and a 21.7 percent premium to the Brookfield-led bid at $15 per share.
But the answer may not be that easy for General Growth. The company rejected Simon’s recap offer due to qualitative issues, such as what it would mean to have a competitor own a large piece of it, even though Brookfield asked for warrants worth hundreds of millions of dollars in return for its investments while Simon did not. In the past, it has raised antitrust concerns around merging the No. 1 and No. 2 U.S. mall operators.
DealZone Daily
British publisher Informa is in talks to buy its German rival Springer Science and Business Media from private equity firms Candover and Cinven, the FT says.
Informa initiated talks with Springer three weeks ago and is considering an all cash bid, according to its story, but private equity firms including Apax and EQT are still looking at the business.
For the latest deals news from Reuters, click here.
And here are the top stories from the newspapers (some external links may require subscription):
French fashion group PPR is planning to sell its retail businesses, including books and music chain FNAC and discount furniture business Conforama, as soon as it can, chief executive Francois-Henri Pinault told the WSJ.
Insurance broker Marsh & McLennan is closing in on a deal for HSBC Insurance Brokers, the UK’s ninth largest broker, valued at 150 to 200 million pounds, the Daily Telegraph says.
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