By Scott Murdoch and Harshita Swaminathan
(Reuters) -Australia’s Nitro Software said on Monday it would back a near A$500 million ($320.15 million) offer from KKR Inc’s Alludo that trumps an earlier bid from major shareholder Potentia Capital Management.
Alludo made the offer early Monday at A$2.00 per share, which it said was an 11% premium to Potentia’s revised bid of $A1.80 per share.
The offer is a 77% premium to Nitro’s share price on Aug. 29, which was the day before it announced Potentia’s first bid of A$1.58 per share.
Nitro on Monday rejected the Potentia bid and said Alludo would be granted three weeks of exclusive access to a data room to carry out due diligence.
Shares of Nitro Software rose as much as 19.1% to A$2.06 in morning trade, the highest point since January.
Nitro shares lost 16% so far in 2022.
In a statement, Nitro said the Alludo offer was fully funded by “equity sources”, without identifying the backers.
However, KKR will provide the funding for the bid, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters, requesting anonymity as the information was not made public.
KKR declined to comment.
Nitro is a PDF and e-signature software signing company that says it has 13,000 business customers and 3 million licenced users, according to its website.
Alludo said its bid requires the support of 75% of investors to be approved, according to the scheme of arrangement. If that does not happen, it will carry out an off-market takeover that requires 50.1% backing from shareholders.
Potentia has built a 19.8% stake in Nitro and declined to comment on the Alludo offer.
Last week, ELMO Software agreed a $A500 million takeover from Los Angeles-based K1 Investment Management.
($1 = 1.5618 Australian dollars)
(Reporting by Scott Murdoch in Sydney and Harshita Swaminathan; editing by Diane Craft, Sam Holmes and Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
