It should have been the largest bank takeover in Germany for years: now the financial investors Advent, Centerbridge and the Canadian pension fund CPPIB have failed to take over the Wiesbaden-based Aareal Bank. The share of the money house listed in the small value segment S-Dax lost almost six percent in value on Monday. As the bank announced at the end of last week, the funds with their offer worth billions for Aareal Bank clearly missed the acceptance threshold they had set themselves.
Overall, only an acceptance rate of 42.55 percent was achieved, said the associated companies. The hurdle was 60 percent. The bidders had admitted on Friday evening that their 1.86 billion euro takeover attempt for the real estate financier had failed. The acceptance period expired on Wednesday evening last week. Those interested in taking over had even lowered the threshold from 70 to 60 percent and increased the offer by EUR 2 to EUR 31 per share. But the hedge funds Petrus Advisers and Teleios, which control about 20 percent of the shares, had also considered the improved offer to be far too low. The takeover was therefore not a sure-fire success. A second attempt is not planned, as an insider said.
Activist investors Petrus Advisers and Teleios, who together hold more than 20 percent of Wiesbadener Bank, celebrated this as a success in defending themselves against the offer, which they felt undervalued Aareal Bank. They sharply criticized the board around Jochen Klösges and called for the replacement of supervisory boards. The rejection of the takeover is “proof of the shareholders’ distrust of a management team that unanimously let themselves be pulled over the cart for an unfair transaction,” said Aareal Bank’s largest shareholder, Petrus Advisers. The board must now examine all options for the bank. The time has come to create value for all shareholders – and not just for those interested in takeovers.
“If Jochen Klösges and CFO Marc Hess are unable or unwilling to put in the hard work now needed, this is their last chance to step down and hand the bank over to other managers.” Klösges defended himself: The offer was in the best interest of everyone involved. Petrus Advisers called for the resignation of Supervisory Board Chairman Hermann Wagner and Richard Peters, the representative of the federal and state pension schemes that had supported the takeover. Petrus Advisers had already had three members of the Supervisory Board voted out at the Annual General Meeting, but narrowly failed with their own candidates.