More Intrigue in CoStar's Bid to Buy CoreLogic

An anonymous source has revealed that the board of US data giant CoreLogic would be willing to declare CoStar's 11th-hour $6.9 billion takeover bid superior to that of the already approved $6 billion bid of Stone Point Capital and Insight Partners and discard the offer from the private equity firms.

Reuters is reporting that CoreLogic is seeking assurances from fellow publicly-listed data giant CoStar that any potential takeover would be concluded speedily with minimal interference from completion authorities. It is also said to be arguing around payment technicalities as the quoted $6.9 billion all-stock offer was worth $95.76 per share when announced on February the 16th but has dropped below $82 per share recently as CoStar's share price has dropped.

US commercial real estate and data company CoStar has made no secret of both its plans to grow via mergers and acquisitions as well as its plans to enter the lucrative domestic residential real estate market and take on Zillow, a company it sees as having an inferior business model. CoStar has already had one deal scuppered by the federal trades commission recently as its $587 bid for failing rental portal operator RentPath was dropped in December after a series of background events which according to CoStar CEO Andy Florance involved a "household name internet giant" as well as Zillow.

Reuters' source said that while they expect some finer points around cash considerations and payment technicalities to be ironed out, the negotiations around a guaranteed timeframe for the deal's conclusion and issues around the FTC are anything but certain. While CoreLogic wants a 6-month deadline for a deal's conclusion, which would be the same as the terms in the Stone Point Capital and Insight Partners deal, CoStar is said to be pushing for 12 months.

The stakes in the deal are very high as a deal between CoSar and CoreLogic would unite two giant owners of real estate data both in the USA and overseas at a time when all stakeholders in the real estate value chain are increasingly reliant on data.