Just when it looked as if an outside bidder had outbid Jim Crane’s management led-private equity group for control of Houston-based EGL, Inc., Crane’s group upped its bid to $46.25 a share (prior posts here) this past Friday. Then, yesterday, the Crane group’s main competitor for EGL — an affiliate of Apollo Management, LP — sweetened its bid to $47.50 per share. EGL’s board, which is being toasted daily by EGL shareholders, notified Crane’s group that it is available until Wednesday to discuss a revision to that group’s $46.25 per share offer.
For those of you keeping score, that newest bid price represents just under a 60% premium over the EGL share price from when Crane’s group announced its his original bid for the company earlier this year.
This all must be very confusing to Ben Stein.