Significant Adevinta Shareholder Yet to Approve $14 Billion Offer

Permira and Blackstone's protracted $14 billion takeover of Norway-based marketplace giant Adevinta continues to stutter with a significant shareholder yet to submit its approval for the takeover bid submitted in December 2023.

While the original deadline for the offer expired on 24 January 2024, a two-week extension to today, February 7 2024, also appears set to expire without a final decision, with Folketrygdfondet yet to accept the takeover offer due to doubts about the value of the deal. The bid may not be extended past the 1st of March.

Adevinta needs a 90% majority for the deal to go through, and Folketrygdfondet's circa 2.5% holding would likely achieve this threshold given the current approval level by other stakeholders sits at circa 88% (including Permira, Schibsted and EBay's combined 72.3% holding).

Folketrygdfondet, which manages investments for the Government Pension Fund of Norway as part of the Ministry of Finance, is "considering all alternatives" amid ongoing scepticism about the true value of the consortium's takeover bid.

Karl Mathisen, Chief Investment Officer of Equities at Folketrygdfondet, told E24 (Norway's largest digital finance and business newspaper):

"We have not accepted the bid for Adevinta, as we believe it does not sufficiently reflect the company’s long-term value creation potential.

"This is in line with the Adevinta board’s own assessment."

Folketrygdfondet is listed as the fifth largest shareholder in Adevinta with a stake of around 2.5 per cent, worth NOK 3.4 billion, according to Infront. The fund thus does not have a large enough stake to be able to block an acquisition.

Adevinta's board has already expressed its doubts about whether the consortium's offer of NOK 115 (USD $11.3) per share reflects Adevinta's long-term growth potential.