Apollo Global Management Inc is interested in helping finance a bid for Twitter Inc following Elon Musk’s US$43 billion unsolicited offer to take the company private, people familiar with the matter said.
Apollo is considering backing a potential deal for Twitter and could provide Musk or another bidder, such as private-equity firm Thoma Bravo LP, with equity or debt to support an offer, the people said, declining to be named because the discussions are private.
The participation could come in the form of credit or preferred equity, one of the people said.
Photo: Reuters
POISON PILL
Twitter shares posted their biggest gain in two weeks on Monday after the social media company launched a poison pill defense to thwart the Tesla Inc chief executive’s bid to take the company private at US$54.20 a share.
A securities filing on Monday confirmed the defense strategy Twitter outlined last week, which would allow the company to issue new stock that all shareholders except Musk could buy at a discounted price.
It imposes a “significant penalty” on any person or entity that would acquire more than 15 percent of the company without board approval, the filing said.
Musk owns just over 9 percent of Twitter shares.
“The board adopted the rights agreement to protect stockholders from coercive or otherwise unfair takeover tactics,” the filing said.
The stock rose 7.5 percent to US$48.45 in New York, its biggest jump since April 4.
Twitter has been fielding takeover interest from other parties, including technology-focused private equity firm Thoma Bravo, a person familiar with the matter said.
Private equity firm Silver Lake, which already owns a significant stake in Twitter, would also make sense as a partner as it has an existing relationship with Musk, but it is unclear if it is interested.
ORACLE
Meanwhile, Musk might partner with Oracle Corp and a private equity consortium that includes Thoma Bravo to thwart Twitter’s poison pill, “while raising the bid 10 to 15 percent to about US$50 billion,” Bloomberg Intelligence analysts said.
Musk, for his part, has said that any rejection of his bid would cause him to re-evaluate his stake. Over the weekend, Musk said that the economic interests of Twitter’s board are not aligned with shareholders.
He was responding to a tweet about board members’ stock holdings, saying that with the impending departure of cofounder Jack Dorsey, the board “collectively owns almost no shares.”
In a Twitter post on Monday, Musk said that if his Twitter bid succeeds, board members would not be given a salary.
Tesla has paid its own directors an annual cash retainer of about US$20,000 plus certain additional fees in recent years, but they also each receive stock option grants every few years — meaning they stand to make tens of millions of dollars or more with Tesla’s stock price gains.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
RSS