By Pierre Bertrand


Suse shares soared Friday after its majority shareholder, Swedish private-equity group EQT, launched an offer to take the software company private in a deal that values it at 2.83 billion euros ($3.08 billion), including an interim dividend.

At 0943 GMT, Suse shares traded 60% higher at EUR15.35.

The company's largest shareholder, an EQT-controlled entity called Marcel which holds around 79% of Suse shares, said holders of the shares it doesn't already own will get EUR16 apiece including the amount of an interim dividend that Suse intends to pay in October. The size of the dividend will depend on the number of Suse shares tendered into the offer, the companies said.

This implies a valuation of EUR2.83 billion for the whole of Suse, based on fully diluted share-count data provided by FactSet.

The bid will be funded by the dividend Marcel will get from Suse, EQT said. Receipt of a sufficient payout will be a condition for closing the deal, it said.

EQT said it intends to delist Suse from the Frankfurt Stock Exchange to allow it to focus on its long-term strategy without pressure from the public market. Suse said its management and supervisory boards support the delisting.

The bid comes a little over two years after Suse went public in May 2021 with an initial public offering price of EUR30 a share.

The offer price represents a sharp discount to the IPO price, but a premium of around 67% to Suse's closing price on Thursday.


Write to Pierre Bertrand at pierre.bertrand@wsj.com


(END) Dow Jones Newswires

08-18-23 0600ET