Cardtronics had agreed to sale to Apollo, Hudson Executive at $35 a share
By Miriam Gottfried and Cara Lombardo, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL // Jan. 8, 2021
NCR Corp. NCR -0.07% is in talks to buy Cardtronics PLC, CATM -1.05% according to people familiar with the matter, seeking to snatch it away from a pair of investment firms including private-equity giant Apollo Global Management Inc. APO +1.37% that earlier agreed to buy the ATM operator.
Cardtronics CATM -1.03% said Thursday it had received an unsolicited bid worth $39 a share and that it had entered into discussions with the suitor, which it didn’t name. The new bidder is NCR, the people said.
The move sets up a potential bidding war for a company that operates 285,000 ATMs in 10 countries, according to its website.
Houston-based Cardtronics on Dec. 15 announced a deal to be sold to Apollo and investment firm Hudson Executive Capital LP for $35 a share. Hudson Executive owns a roughly 19% stake in Cardtronics. Its founder, former JPMorgan Chase & Co. finance chief Douglas Braunstein, sits on its board and has recused himself from sale discussions, the company has said.
Atlanta-based NCR, formerly known as National Cash Register and once owned by AT&T Inc. , makes ATMs as well as point-of-sale systems and self-service kiosks for businesses such as retailers and restaurants. Similar to other hardware makers, it has been pivoting its business toward software sales and other recurring services.
This isn’t the first time Apollo has recently been faced with a competing offer for a publicly traded company it had agreed to buy. In late 2019, the private-equity firm raised its offer for Tech Data Corp. after the technology distributor received a bid from Warren Buffett’sBerkshire Hathaway Inc. Apollo’s deal for Tech Data closed in June of last year.
Write to Miriam Gottfried at Miriam.Gottfried@wsj.com and Cara Lombardo at cara.lombardo@wsj.com
