(Bloomberg) -- PartnerRe Ltd. will ask its shareholders to voteon a planned merger with Axis Capital Holdings Ltd. after Exor SpArefused to raise a $6.8 billion hostile bid for the reinsurer.
|“Exor has effectively rejected our board’s good faith offer” tonegotiate, Bermuda-based PartnerRe said in a statement Friday. “Wehave made it very clear that Exor’s price and terms areunacceptable.”
|Exor SpA, the investment vehicle led by Italy’s Agnelli family,has sought to break up the deal between the Bermuda- basedreinsurers with an all-cash bid, which was raised from a previousproposal of $6.4 billion. The Turin-based company said Thursdaythat it was open to discussions to provide certainty about itsability to complete a transaction, but the price wasn’tnegotiable.
|PartnerRe, which was granted a waiver to begin talks with Exor,said it was turned away by the hostile bidder’s demand that itsoffer be declared as likely to be a superior proposal.
|Axis’s waiver “contained no restrictions whatsoever that wouldimpede full and open discussions,” PartnerRe said. “We remaininterested to proceed on that basis to determine whether the offercan be improved so that it is compelling.”
|Exor is seeking to diversify beyond industrial companies such asFiat Chrysler Automobiles NV. A PartnerRe takeover would be Exor’slargest in more than a century.
|Elkann’s view
|“Exor will not consider increasing the price of its bindingoffer or changing the deal-protection terms,” Chief ExecutiveOfficer John Elkann wrote in a letter to PartnerRe’s boardThursday.
|Elkann’s company said May 12 that it had acquired a stake ofmore than 9 percent in PartnerRe and had prepared proxy materialsto allow investors to vote against the Axis merger.
|PartnerRe slipped 0.6 percent to $132.68 at 10:45 a.m. in NewYork, while Axis rose 5 cents to $55.71. Exor was little changed at44.7 euros in Milan.
|Exor had no immediate comment, according to a spokesman.
|Copyright 2018 Bloomberg. All rightsreserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten,or redistributed.
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