Stockholm-based private equity major EQT Partners has made an offer to acquire financial services business Perpetual (ASX: PPT), a business it previously sought to acquire four years ago.
Perpetual has a market capitalisation of $1.79 billion.
On 1 July, Perpetual’s shares shot up around 17% from $15.47 to $18.10 before the company sought a trading halt.
Perpetual said it had applied for its shares to be placed on hold until it could make an announcement regarding an approach it had received in relation to a potential change of control transaction. The company said it had requested the shares to be placed on hold until the start of trading on Friday 3 July or release of the announcement, whichever came first.
Perpertual did not state the name of the party that had made the offer.
The Australian Financial Review reported the suitor was EQT, advised by Barrenjoey Capital Partners. Bloomberg later reported Perpetual has already rejected EQT’s offer.
EQT’s Australian private equity team and Regal Partners (ASX: RPL) had a $1.89 billion offer for Perpetual rejected in 2022.
In 2024, KKR agreed to pay $2.18 billion for Perpetual’s wealth management and corporate trust business but that deal did not progress to completion after late last year after the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) provided a tax estimate for the deal almost five times Perpetual’s initial estimate of between $106 million and $227 million.
Perpetual’s wealth management and corporate trust business was instead acquired by Bain Capital for up to $550 million in a deal agreed in March.
Intriguingly, the current bid for Perpetual came only a day after the company had reported a significant reduction in the holding of a substantial shareholder. Premier Investments Limited had reduced its stake from 8.748% to 7.542% with a sale of close to two million shares.