HIS SUITOR SAGA
Singer QEP bid echoes Athena
Yet another bold buyout engineered by Paul Singer is in danger of fizzling.
The hard-charging billionaire’s activist hedge fund Elliott Management has slashed the price of its takeover bid for energy company QEP Resources, throwing the $2 billion deal into doubt, The Post has learned.
Elliott — famous for staring down high-profile targets ranging from Argentina’s government to the Cabela’s hunt-and-fish retail chain — in January had said it would pay $8.75 a share for the Denver-based energy company.
That was a 44-percent premium to QEP shares at the time, and the stock briefly surpassed the offer price. QEP in February hired Evercore to explore a possible sale and BMOCapital Markets has been acting as its financial advisor.
It couldn’t immediately be learned by how much Elliott, which has disclosed a 5-percent stake in QEP, has cut its offer. It looks doubtful, however, whether QEP will accept the discounted bid, and meanwhile no other suitors have stepped up, sources said.
QEP’s shares — which got a boost late last month on reports that a deal was close after doubts had dragged the stock to where it was before Elliott disclosed its stake — have since sagged again.
The stock has dropped more than 10 percent over the past week, closing on Thursday at $6.31, off a penny from the previous day’s close.
The situation smacks of other, recent deals for Elliott that have either taken a markdown or gotten scrapped altogether.
Elliott had prodded Arconic to sell itself for more than a year, but the aluminum-parts maker took itself off the block amid investor concerns about its liabilities in the Grenfell Tower fire that killed 72 people in London in 2017.
Athenahealth — whose CEO Jonathan Bush resigned amid domesticabuse allegations after Elliott campaigned for his ouster — was acquired by Elliott in November for $135 a share after the firm’s original, $160-a-share offer failed to draw any competing bids.
Meanwhile, sources say an auction of ratings giant Nielsen, which put itself up for sale last fall under pressure from Elliott, is sputtering as prospective buyers Blackstone Group and Advent have backed out.
Elliott’s biggest activist plays in the last few years included troubled aluminum panel maker Arconic and Athenahealth.
The losing streak stands in sharp contrast to previous success stories including Mentor Graphics, Cabela’s and LifeLock.
Elliott declined to comment.