Bengaluru: British healthcare real estate investment trust Assura on Monday said it will likely consider a 1.61 billion pounds ($2.08 billion) offer from KKR and Stonepeak Partners, after rejecting four previous offers from another KKR-led consortium.
In February, KKR and pension fund Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) said they had made four indicative, non-binding proposals to Assura, the last of which was at 48 pence per share, which was rejected by the British company’s board.
Monday’s offer of 49.4 pence per share from KKR and investment firm Stonepeak is at a 31.9per cent premium to the closing share price on February 13 when the previous offer was made and is at a 21.3per cent premium to Friday’s close.
About the latest offer made by KKR and Stonepeak, Assura said the board has decided to engage in discussions with the consortium and to allow it to complete a limited period of confirmatory due diligence.
In February, when Assura rejected the offer from KKR and USS, a source familiar with the situation had told Reuters that any future attempt would likely be an independent one as USS backed out. ($1 = 0.7742 pounds) ($1 = 0.7747 pounds) (Reporting by Chandini Monnappa in Bengaluru; Editing by Janane Venkatraman and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
