Pacific Smiles finds Genesis Capital's offer superior, awaits NDC's counter
Adds analyst comment; updates shares
By Rishav Chatterjee and Shivangi Lahiri
July 31 (Reuters) -Australian dental care firm Pacific Smiles PSQ.AX said on Wednesday that private equity firm Genesis Capital's near $200 million buyout offer was superior to one from National Dental Care (NDC), which had one more day to top that bid.
Earlier this week, Genesis Capital raised its offer for Pacific Smiles to A$303 million ($198.6 million), matching NDC's proposal from late April.
Despite the matching offers, Pacific Smiles said Genesis Capital's was superior since it was more likely to go through and to be more favourable to Pacific Smiles shareholders.
Pacific Smiles had called Genesis Capital's first takeover offer, made last December, "opportunistically timed" and, earlier this week, backed NDC's bid.
It now said it was in discussions with NDC, which has until the end of Thursday, Aug. 1 to match or top Genesis Capital's offer.
Henry Jennings, a senior market analyst at MarcusToday, said NDC could match Genesis Capital's offer but it needed to "make a knock-out offer and shore up the ability to compete."
Pacific Smiles' shares were up just under 1% at A$1.90, in line with the identical A$1.90-per-share offers from the rival bidders.
($1 = 1.5404 Australian dollars)
Reporting by Rishav Chatterjee and Shivangi Lahiri in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu, Mrigank Dhaniwala and Savio D'Souza
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