Morning Hubsters!
M&A battle
There’s another M&A fight brewing.
Wildcat Capital, the family office for TPG co-founder David Bonderman, is pushing for Consolidated Communications Holdings to reject a $2.9 billion takeover offer from Searchlight Capital and British Columbia Investment Management Corp.
Wildcat, which owns 2.6 percent of the outstanding shares of the company, sent a letter to the special committee of the broadband service provider’s board of directors. Searchlight’s non-binding takeover proposal on April 12 offered $4 per share, which Wildcat says undervalues the company’s equity by 3.5x, according to the letter. Wildcat says fair value for the company would be around $14 per share, the letter said.
The company should not explore a sale at this time because Ebitda and free cash flow are “temporarily depressed” from capital expenditures from fiber upgrades, while revenue and Ebitda from fiber projects are not yet realized, the letter said. The company has a long-term project to upgrade 70 percent of its network to fiber, according to communications networking and services trade publication Light Reading.
“At a high level, we have confidence in the operating strategy that CNSL management is executing and believe that with its existing liquidity and build/financing flexibility, CNSL does not need to pursue strategic alternatives at this juncture,” the letter said.
Searchlight owns 34.3 percent of the company, according to a statement in April. A request for comment has been made to Searchlight.
Exit
Edison Partners sold digital customer education business Northpass to Vista Equity-backed Gainsight.
Edison led a $4 million Series A funding round in the company in 2019. At that time, the company said it would expand its product team, based in Poland, with developers, designers and product managers. The company also planned on hiring sales reps, account executives and marketing professionals in the US.
Big deal
Apollo’s Sponsor and Secondary Solutions platform, known as S3, was lead investor in a large continuation fund deal for around 50 co-investments out of older GoldPoint Partners funds.
Apogem Capital, which comprises GoldPoint, PA Capital and Madison Capital, ran the deal on GoldPoint Co-Investment Funds V and VI. Total net asset value of the deal, which closed recently, was around $1.2 billion.
The process also included a staple of fresh capital from the investor group – which included Jasper Ridge and Montana Capital – into an upcoming co-investment Fund VII, sources told Buyouts. Read more here.
GP-led deals represented around $43 billion of the $106 billion of estimated total volume in 2022, according to Campbell Lutyens’ full-year volume survey. GP-led transactions were split around 48 percent single-asset deals to 43 percent multi-assets transactions.
Buyers have appeared more interested in LP portfolio sales this year, though GPs continue to introduce continuation fund transactions to the market. One such deal, run by EQT for its asset Waystar, was pulled recently after pricing came in too low, wrote PE Hub affiliate publication Secondaries Investor.
That’s it for me. Have a great rest of the day. Reach me with tips n’ gossip, feedback or book recommendations (I just finished The Portrait of a Lady … magnificent!) at cwitkowsky@buyoutsinsider.com or find me on LinkedIn.
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