EQT sweetens pursuit of Australia's Perpetual with $1.75 billion bid

By Rajasik Mukherjee and Kumar Tanishk

July 15 (Reuters) - Australia's Perpetual said on Wednesday it received a sweetened A$2.5 billion ($1.75 billion) takeover proposal from Sweden's EQT AB, less than two weeks after rejecting the private equity firm's earlier offer, deeming it inadequate.

Under the revised offer, EQT would buy all of Perpetual's shares for A$22.07 apiece, a near-22% premium to the company's July 1 closing price, before it disclosed the initial approach to the market.

The offer also represents a premium of more than 42% to Perpetual's June 30 close, before media reports of EQT's approach drove the stock sharply higher.

The latest bid is 2% higher than EQT's earlier A$2.45 billion proposal, which Perpetual rejected. Its shares have gained more than 17% since July 1.

The board said it was assessing the revised offer but cautioned there was no certainty it would result in a binding transaction.

Perpetual also disclosed that EQT's revised proposal included a confidentiality clause stipulating that the offer would be automatically withdrawn if made public.

The company said it nonetheless "considers it appropriate to inform Perpetual shareholders of its receipt."

Emanuel Ajay Datt, managing director at fund manager Datt Capital, however, raised doubts about the deal, saying "EQT will face strong competition for any serious bid, and it is unlikely that EQT will be capable of securing the asset, given their poor track record of completion in Australian public market M&A."

Last year, EQT lobbed an A$5.25 billion bid to take over insurance broking firm AUB Group, but dropped its pursuit in December.

Founded in 1886, Perpetual was established as a trustee company by a group of businessmen, including Edmund Barton, who later became Australia's first prime minister.

The improved bid is the latest twist in an increasingly public tug-of-war over the storied Australian firm, which has now rebuffed takeover interest from at least three different suitors since 2022, including its own largest shareholder.

In 2022, it rejected an A$1.7 billion takeover bid from a consortium including portfolio manager Regal Partners, and the next year it turned down an A$3.1 billion offer from its top shareholder, Washington H Soul Pattinson.

($1 = 1.4310 Australian dollars)

(Reporting by Rajasik Mukherjee in Bengaluru; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Shreya Biswas)