CSG boosts price for Vista Outdoor’s ammunition business to $2.15 billion

Czechoslovak Group (CSG) has boosted the price it will pay for Vista Outdoor Inc.’s ammunition brands to $2.15 billion in an amended merger agreement that adds $50 million to the deal.

Vista postponed a Tuesday shareholders’ meeting to July 30. The company’s ammunition business including the Federal, Remington and Speer brands is known as the Kinetic Group. After the sale of that group, its Revelyst outdoor brands would be spun off into a new public company.

“We are pleased that CSG has increased its purchase price for the Kinetic Group, underscoring their continued commitment to the transaction and the underlying value they see in our business,” Michael Callahan, Vista’s board chair, said in a statement. “We are confident the transaction with CSG maximizes value for our stockholders and provides stockholders the opportunity to realize superior value in Revelyst when separated from the Kinetic Group. We urge stockholders to vote for the CSG transaction, which delivers clear, compelling value and the ability to close in early August.”

Anoka-based Vista received final approval for the sale to Prague-based CSG from the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) in June. Proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis & Co. recommended last week that Vista shareholders vote in favor of the CSG deal, a change from its original recommendation.

The revised offer from CSG is a $240 million increase from the original price of $1.91 billion that had been agreed to in October, Vista said.

Vista canceled a shareholder vote in June to consider a new bid from U.S.-based MNC Capital Partners. On Monday, MNC reiterated its $3.2 billion bid for both the Kinetic Group and Revelyst, which the Vista board of directors rejected.

In a statement, MNC said “it is willing to make a tender offer directly to Vista’s shareholders at $42 a share, if Vista approves of MNC making the offer and allows shareholders to decide whether to accept it.”

New York-based Gates Capital Management, which owns 9.6% of Vista, is opposed to the CSG deal.

“We cannot understand how any shareholder would vote for a transaction that we believe is certain to have less value than either the $42 all-cash offer from MNC Capital or the long-term value that could be created through a tax-free spin-off,” Gates Capital said in a statement.

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