Blackstone, H&F have joint bid for Scout24 rejected

H&F and Blackstone expressed their interest towards the management board of Scout24 regarding the launch of a potential joint voluntary public takeover offer to the shareholders at an offer price of €43.50 per share.

The board rejected the proposed offer price as inadequate. Following the announcement last Friday, the company's share price rose to €42.74 per share on Monday morning.

Unquote sister publication Mergermarket reported that a consortium of investors including Silver Lake and GIC had been in talks for the company before Christmas of 2018. Three unnamed sources told Mergermarket that the process failed due to a gap in price expectations. Scout24 had reportedly been seeking a valuation of 24x EBITDA, a multiple similar to Silver Lake's purchase of consumer pricing information service ZPG at 23.3x the pro-forma EBITDA.

Blackstone and H&F originally bought a majority stake of 70% in Scout24 in 2013, with Deutsche Telekom holding the remaining 30%.

In 2015, the company floated on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange giving Scout24 a €3.2bn market cap, opening at €30 per share. It saw Scout24 raise €1.16bn in proceeds. A capital increase of 7.6 million shares contributed gross proceeds of €228m.

Blackstone divested a block of shares in September 2016, representing a 12.7% stake and fully exiting its holding, while H&F did not participate.

H&F made a partial exit in October 2017 reaping €327m in proceeds. In February 2018, the firm fully divested its holding, joining a consortium to sell a €340m stake in the company.

Blackstone gave no comment when asked if they planned to make another offer and H&F could not be reached for comment.

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