AGL rebuffs revised bid and claims there is greater value to come
AGL Energy has again rejected a takeover offer from Brookfield and Mike Cannon-Brookes claiming the revised $8.25 a share bid was still below fair value for the energy company.
Co-founder of Atlassian Mike Cannon-Brookes has spent decades becoming an overnight success. (AAP image).
“The AGL board considers that the revised unsolicited proposal is still well below both the fair value of the company on a change-of-control basis and relative to the expected value of the proposed demerger and therefore not in the interests of AGL Energy shareholders,” the company said.
Cannon-Brookes indicated the decision would mean the bidders would now walk away from bid leaving AGL’s share price at $7.46, well below the offer price.
The offer was a 15 per cent premium to the company’s closing price on February 18, but chair Peter Botten said it ignored the opportunities from the demerger of assets planned by the company.
He said that demerger, which would put the coal fired power station assets into a separate company, ignored the future value of the company.
“It also ignores the momentum we have recently seen in the business through our solid half year result, strong progress on the demerger, strong interest in our energy transition investment partnership and the improvements we are seeing in forward wholesale prices,” Botten said.
He said the demerger would be a catalyst for potential realisation of shareholder value and each business would be valued more positively by the market.
Cannon-Brookes announced the rejection yesterday on Twitter.
“The Brookfield-Grok consortium looking to take private & transform AGL is putting out pens down – with great sadness,” he tweeted.
The consortium had lifted its offer to $8.25 per share, worth about $9 billion plus debt, from an initial unsolicited bid of $7.50 in late February.
