It?s just not enough.
Despite an increase of 2.5 percent in a proposed buyout of Laureate Education Inc., some shareholders are still not satisfied with the bottom line. Raising its offer by $1.50 to $62 per share from the initial bid, a group of investors had hoped to overcome objections that their original bid was undervalued.
But this week, the critics remained just as vocal about their stance on the $3.82 billion sale price.
“T. Rowe Price continues to oppose the transaction because we think the company is worth substantially more than this slightly revised offer,” said Brian Lewbart, a spokesman for Baltimore-based T. Rowe Price Associates.
The local $349.9 billion asset manager isn?t the only holdout.
New York-based Select Equity Group Inc. issued a letter to Laureate?s board of directors Monday voicing its displeasure. The 9.8 percent owner of Laureate indicated that since the initial offer in January, future earnings per share estimates have risen substantially, along with other data that indicate a growing financial future for the company.
“Despite these new facts, the revised offer for Laureate is only 2.5 percent above the original offer, a negligible increase that values Laureate at a deeper discount to its peers today than the original offer did in January,” wrote John D. Brittion and James R. Berman, principal general counsel for Select Equity. “Select Equity does not support a transaction at these levels and will not tender its shares at $62.00.”
This isn?t the first time Select Equity, the third-largest shareholder of Laureate stock, has spoken up.
In February, Brittion and Berman wrote a letter filed with the Securities andExchange Commission that said the proposed deal was “flawed by clear conflicts of interest.”
The letter referred to Douglas Becker, Laureate?s current chairman and chief executive officer who also heads the group looking to buy the company.
