Car rental company Avis has agreed to pay a $20-million break-up fee in its offer for Dollar Thrifty if rival Hertz walks away from its own takeover bid. Dollar Thrifty shareholders were due to vote on the Hertz offer on Thursday in Chicago, but announced they have delayed that vote, citing additional voting activity. *View article*
Hertz and Avis have been going back-and-forth in their bid to wrest control of Dollar Thrifty since Hertz initially announced its takeover bid last April. Hertz and Dollar Thrifty agreed to a sweetened deal earlier this month, currently worth about $50.95 a share or roughly $1.5 billion. The Wall Street Journal said the Avis deal isn’t likely to help Dollar Thrifty shareholders that much, as Avis’s additional $20 million break-up fee was just “45 percent of the $44.6 million break-up fee that would be due to Hertz immediately upon signing an Avis deal.” *View WSJ blog*
China’s Sinochem is working feverishly to put together a rival bid for Potash Corp to counter BHP Billiton’s $39-billion hostile takeover offer, sources told Reuters. Although BHP’s bid deadline isn’t until November 18, “sources close to the firm” told Reuters a decision could come soon. *View article*
Is there trouble looming for the hedge fund industry? Wall Street hedge fund firm D. E. Shaw this week laid off around 150 staff, roughly 10 percent of its 1,500-person workforce, according to Reuters Breakingviews columnist Rob Cox. Cox points out the layoffs are unlikely to be an isolated event as assets under management at hedge funds are down 29 percent since 2007. *View blog*
Sanofi-Aventis is considering whether to raise its $18.5-billion bid for drugmaker Genzyme as soon as next week, Bloomberg said, citing sources. Sanofi has not ruled out a hostile bid but would prefer friendly negotiations, the report said. *