(Bloomberg) -- Vista Outdoor Inc. investor TIG Advisors LLC is planning to vote against the company’s deal to sell its ammunition business and support a separate takeover bid from MNC Capital.
TIG said in a statement Friday that MNC’s $3.2 billion all-cash bid for the entire company “appears to be a better alternative” than selling the Kinetic Group unit to Czechoslovak Group AS for $2.1 billion, a transaction that raised national security concerns about a sale to the Czech arms conglomerate.
“The MNC offer presents both maximum certainty of value and less execution risk,” TIG said. “We find it disturbing that the board is now threatening shareholders, indicating that it will not engage with MNC regardless of the outcome of the shareholder vote.”
The statement by TIG, which said it has a stake of roughly 1%, follows a recommendation by proxy advisory firm Institutional Shareholder Services Inc. for investors to vote against CSG’s bid at a July 23 meeting and instead push Vista to consider the MNC offer.
In recent months, a bidding war has been heating up around the Minnesota-based company, whose more than three dozen sporting and outdoor brands include Remington, Bushnell and Bell.
CSG announced the initial $1.9 billion deal in October and has increased the purchase price several times this year to $2.1 billion in response to MNC’s offer. MNC has boosted its offer to $42 a share.
Vista urged investors in a statement Thursday to support the CSG deal. The company, which plans to change its name to Revelyst after the sale, said MNC’s offer doesn’t reflect the value expected to be unlocked by the CSG deal. Vista has climbed $3.1% to $37.52 over the past two days.
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