Business news : Billabong gets rival $1.10 offer from Altamont and VF Corp

According the Australian, BILLABONG has received a second $1.10-per-share cash offer from two US firms, rivalling a bid already tabled by its US boss Paul Naude and setting up the iconic surfwear retailer for a takeover battle.

The bid values Billabong at $526.8 million.
In a statement to the stock exchange, the company said that it had received a bid from a Altamont Capital Partners, a San Franciso private equity firm, and VF Corporation, the owner of numerous retail brands including Wrangler, Lee, Reef and The North Face.
Billabong said that it would give the new bidders the opportunity to conduct non-exclusive due diligence.
Mr Naude, the president of Billbong's Americas division and a director of the company, and his backers Sycamore Partners Management and Bank of America Merrill Lynch, are also conducting due diligence on the apparel chain, after offering Billabong $1.10 per share in cash in December.

Analysts had expected any forthcoming formal offer from Mr Naude's consortium to be lower than $1.10 per share. The consortium is not expected to complete due diligence until next month.
"Billabong will now run a process to evaluable whether a change of control proposal, at a price and on terms that the board would recommend, can be secured," the company said in its ASX statement today, adding that the process would take about six weeks.
BBG shares closed down 1.7 per cent today at 84.5 cents each.
Altamont and VF's approach is the fifth Billabong has received in the past year. A $842 million bid made by US private equity firm TPG Capital in February was rejected by the board as too low. TPG returned in July with a $695 million offer, as did rival private equity firm Bain Capital, but both walked away from takeover talks last October.
Over  the same period, Billabong downgraded earnings, sold part of its Nixon brand to ease debt, closed underperforming stores, and launched a $225 million capital raising that almost half of all eligible retail shareholders snubbed.
New chief executive Launa Inman is undertaking a major overhaul of the company. Last week she appointed former APN News & Media and Network Ten chief financial officer Peter Myers as Billabong's new CFO, to aid its defence against the Naude takeover.

( source The Australian January 14, 2013 5:35PM )

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