Sparring Partner

5 May 2015 By Neil Unmack Follow @unmack1

The Italian dynasty’s vehicle, Exor, has offered $6.4 bln for the Bermudan reinsurer. PartnerRe’s rigid board is sticking with a sweetened but lower-value merger with Axis. Exor’s hostile stance may put PartnerRe in play – as it probably should have been from the start.

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PartnerRe on May 4 reaffirmed its commitment to a merger with Axis Capital agreed on Jan. 25, and said PartnerRe shareholders would receive an additional cash dividend of $11.50 a share upon the closing of the deal.

The statement comes after Exor, the investment vehicle of the Italian Agnelli family, made a $130-a-share all-cash bid for PartnerRe. The revised merger-of-equals deal values PartnerRe at about $125 a share based on closing market prices on May 4.

Exor said in a May 4 statement that the new deal “still undervalues PartnerRe and is clearly not in the best interests of PartnerRe, its shareholders, employees and policyholders… The revised terms are a clear admission that the original transaction with Axis, which was the result of a flawed process, undervalued PartnerRe, as is the case with the revised transaction.”

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