FRANKFURT/LONDON (Reuters) - Two private equity consortia vying for control of German generic drugmaker Stada (STAGn.DE) have lined up funding to back their rival takeover offers each worth 4.7 billion euros (4.1 billion pounds) including debt.
The takeover struggle pits a combination of Advent and Permira against Bain and Cinven, both of which have now made binding takeover offers, according to people familiar with the matter.
Reuters has also reported that China’s Shanghai Fosun Pharmaceutical (600196.SS) is looking into entering the bidding tussle.
Securing financing packages was a precondition set by Stada before more business data could be provided to the bidders, the sources added.
The supervisory board of Stada - a supplier of generic drugs, consumer care products, diagnostics kits and e-cigarettes for vaping - was due to meet on Wednesday to consider the offers, they said.
The offers are pitched at 58 euros per share and Stada traded at 57.27 euros at 1400 GMT.
Banks are lining up around 2.4 billion-2.6 billion euros of debt financing to back each of the bids, equating to around 6.0-6.5 times Stada’s approximate 400 million euros EBITDA, banking sources said.
Barclays, Citigroup, Nomura and UBS are among a group of banks backing Bain and Cinven’s bid, while Bank of America Merrill Lynch, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Morgan Stanley and UniCredit are among banks supporting Advent and Permira, the banking sources said.
Deutsche Bank is advising Stada, the banking sources added.
The debt is likely to be denominated in euros and the large size of the financing means that it could be split between leveraged loans and high-yield bonds, the banking sources said.
The financing will be sold down in a syndication process to investors, expected to launch in May, if one of the private equity consortia is successful, the banking sources said.
Permira, Advent and Cinven declined to comment on the financing. Bain was not immediately available to comment.
As part of the confirmed offers, worth 58 euros per share as before, shareholders stand to receive the full dividend of 0.72 euros per share for 2016, a payout level that was proposed by Stada’s management two weeks ago.
($1 = 0.9401 euros)
Additional reporting by Alexander Huebner in Frankfurt; Writing by Ludwig Burger; Editing by Keith Weir