MADRID (Reuters) – American buyout fund Apollo on Friday filed a tender offer for 100% of the shares of Spanish industrial testing company Applus Services in a transaction that values the company at 1.23 billion euros ($1.33 billion).
The fund offered to pay 9.50 euros in cash per Applus share, it said in a filing to the stock market regulator.
The regulator had suspended trading in Applus shares early on Friday, and authorised it to resume at 1 p.m. (1100 GMT).
Apollo’s bid offers a 1.9% premium over Thursday’s closing price of 9.32 euros. The shares have gained 45% so far this year on speculation several investors were preparing a takeover.
Reuters reported last month that several funds including Apollo, Apax, I Squared Capital Advisors and TDR were looking at Applus.
Last week, infrastructure private equity fund I Squared Capital Advisors said it was evaluating a takeover bid for Applus together with TDR Capital.
($1 = 0.9223 euros)
(Reporting by Inti Landauro and Jesus Aguado, editing by Andrei Khalip)
