Vista Outdoor postpones sale vote, yet again, after new bid from MNC Capital

Vista Outdoor’s attempt to sell its ammunition business to a Czech company has again been delayed by a new bid from a rival suitor.

Anoka-based Vista and MNC Capital have been publicly wrangling this week after MNC on Friday raised its bid for all of Vista from $42 to $43 a share.

With the new offer, Vista adjourned a special shareholder meeting to consider the $2.15 billion sale of its ammunition business to Czechoslovak Group, a Prague-based conglomerate. The shareholder vote — rescheduled for the sixth time — has been moved from Friday to Sept. 27.

MNC Capital is a U.S.-based group of investors that includes a global investment bank and a private equity fund with over $15 billion in assets under management. Its bid for all of Vista — including Vista’s Revelyst portfolio of outdoors products — now stands at more than $3.2 billion.

In addition to the new bid Friday, MNC Capital said it gave Vista Outdoor details of its full financing package . MNC also said the revised offer would be withdrawn unless the deal was signed by Monday.

Vista Outdoor later Friday acknowledged the new $43 a share offer while also expressing its continued frustration with MNC Capital. The two companies have been negotiating off and on for well over a year.

“The public communication by MNC only hours after delivery of the proposal as well as the Monday expiration continue a frustrating pattern and is not constructive,” Vista wrote in a news release.

MNC Capital countered on Monday, issuing a new statement pointing to the weakness in financial results reported by Revelyst — and Revelyst’s competitors — as further evidence its bid is superior.

“ It is clear that if Revelyst were to become a public company it would face significant headwinds, and any CSG transaction that included Revelyst shares would provide a value substantially below MNC’s prior offer of $42 a share,” MNC Capital wrote in its Monday letter.

Vista has been exploring “strategic alternatives” since May 2022, but none top the value of MNC’s offer, even at the previous $42 per share, MNC wrote.

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Vista Outdoor responded early Tuesday saying it would continue to engage with MNC Capital. However, it says it will recommend that shareholders approve the deal with CSG Group at the special shareholder meeting.

“The Board as always remains committed to maximizing value for Vista Outdoor stockholders and will continue to take actions to achieve this objective,” it said in the news release Tuesday.

On July 30 Vista Outdoor had adjourned its special shareholder meeting for a fifth time and announced that its board of directors would seek strategic alternatives including further engagement with MNC Capital. They set the new date for the special shareholder meeting as Sept. 13.

Little information had come out since then other than Vista Outdoor releasing first-quarter financial results.