But the tech billionaire faces stiff resistance from Twitter’s Board of Directors
Elon Musk has unveiled a $46.5 billion financing package to fund his takeover bid for Twitter, according to the Financial Times. The announcement comes as he pushes ahead with a deal that would be one of the largest leveraged buyouts in history.
Musk said he would personally provide $21bn of equity for the deal with another $12.5bn coming from margin loans, according to paperwork filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission this week.
Banks, including Morgan Stanley, have agreed to provide another $13bn in debt secured against Twitter itself, according to the filing.
Musk has not yet determined if he will make a tender offer for Twitter or whether he will take other steps to further the proposal, the filing states.
Tender offers involve making a bid to purchase some or all shares of a company directly from its shareholders.
Twitter’s Board adopts the “poison pill” strategy
Musk had earlier offered to buy the social media platform for $43bn and Twitter’s board is yet to officially respond to that offer but adopted a so-called a “poison pill” strategy.
The poison pill is another term for a shareholder rights plan, which allows investors to buy additional shares of the company’s stock at a discount.
This dilutes the value of each individual share amid concerns about an unwanted hostile takeover.
In Twitter’s case, if any shareholder accumulates a 15% stake in the company in a purchase not approved by the board of directors, other shareholders would get the right to buy additional shares at a discount, diluting the 9.2% stake Musk recently acquired.
If set into motion, the poison pill will give shareholders more voting power while severely diluting Musk’s shares in the firm.
“The Twitter board of directors will carefully review the proposal to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the company and all Twitter stockholders,” Twitter said as it confirmed it received Musk’s bid valuing the company at $43.4 billion.
Musk’s offer price of $54.20 per share represents a 38% premium to the closing price of Twitter’s stock on 1 April, the last trading day before the Tesla CEO’s over 9% investment in the company was publicly announced.
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