CoStar Adds $450M In Cash To CoreLogic Offer, Accepts Proposed Antitrust Covenant
CoStar Group has renewed its efforts to acquire real estate data specialist CoreLogic, adding $17 per share over the bid of private equity investors Stone Point and Insight, or about $450M in cash, on top of CoStar stock.
The new terms include an offer to CoreLogic shareholders of $6 per share in cash, along with 0.1019 shares of CoStar for each share owned. Combined, that represents $1.25B over the Stone Point/Insight offer, according to CoStar, which also accepted an antitrust covenant as part of the proposed merger.
"Since your announcement of the SPC Agreement (Stone Point/Insight deal) and our previous letter to you on February 16, 2021, your stock price has remained well above the SPC Agreement’s $80 per share price," CoStar told CoreLogic board members in an open letter on Monday. "Clearly, your stockholders are holding firm to their support for a transaction between our two companies over the SPC Agreement."
CoreLogic stock began trading on Monday at over $85 per share.
CoStar, the real estate data giant with a long history of acquisitions, attempted to smooth over antitrust concerns in the letter.
"We will agree to an antitrust covenant that we will take all actions to obtain the required antitrust approvals up to a material adverse effect on the combined company," the letter also noted.
CoStar says that it expects the board of CoreLogic will determine that its offer is better than that of its rival bidders in short order.
The struggle for acquisition targets has been an ongoing one for CoStar, and usually, it has prevailed. The company bought Off Campus Partners and STR in 2019, and in 2020 acquired digital auction platform Ten-X. In December, the Federal Trade Commission cleared the company's acquisition of Homesnap.
In November, however, the FTC authorized a lawsuit seeking to prevent CoStar from acquiring residential data specialist RentPath, and RentPath shortly thereafter called off the proposed deal.
