Already a subscriber?APM Human Services’ largest shareholder, Chicago-headquartered private equity firm Madison Dearborn Partners, submitted a revised non-binding indicative offer for the embattled employment services group over the weekend.The new offer was flagged, in part, by the company on Friday when it asked for an extension to a trading halt. Sources suggested the bid would not be at a knock-out price, and could even be around the same $1.
Should Madison Dearborn succeed, it would be buying back APM for less than half of what it was valued at in its late 2021 float. At the time, Goldman Sachs, UBS, Credit Suisse and Bank of America sold shares at $3.55 apiece to raise $982 million. APM listed with a $3.3 billion market capitalisation, and has since shrunk to just $1.49 billion.
The float took Madison Dearborn from owning 52 per cent of the register to 29.7 per cent. It would be attempting to delist APM after CVC on March 27 said it would not proceed with its $2 a share bid lobbed a month earlier. The $2 a share offer, in turn, came after APM knocked back the $1.60 a share bid, saying it “does not sufficiently reflect the fundamental value of APM and the potential of its market leading platform globally”. The takeover talks spilled out into the public, after Street Talk revealed CVC’s initial approach.Of note, rival buyout firm Bain Capital has been considering a tilt, with Jefferies Australia on hand for advice.
has co-edited Street Talk since 2009, specialising in private equity, investment banking, M&A and equity capital markets stories. Prior to that, she spent 10 years in London as a markets and M&A reporter at Bloomberg and Dow Jones.