EGL shareholders agree to Apollo/CEVA takeover

EGL shareholders agree to Apollo/CEVA takeover Shareholders of EGL Inc., parent company of Houston-based Eagle Global Logistics, Tuesday agreed to the sale of the company to New York-based private equity firm Apollo Management for $47.50 per share, or nearly $2 billion.
   EGL will now become a subsidiary of the CEVA Group, a United Kingdom public limited company owned by affiliates of Apollo.
   Apollo spent nearly the same amount ($1.9 billion) last year to acquire TNT Logistics from the Dutch postal and express group TNT N.V. and renamed the company CEVA Logistics.
   In May of this year, Apollo-CEVA won a bitter bidding war for EGL with a management consortium led by Jim Crane, EGL’s chairman and chief executive officer, and two investment groups. EGL’s board originally agreed to let the Crane consortium take the company private, but Apollo countered with its own offer after several large shareholders complained the company accepted the Crane deal too quickly. Crane has since complained that his bid was undermined by insider leaks.
   EGL has paid Crane, the company’s largest shareholder, and his investors, Centerbridge Partners L.P. and The Woodbridge Co. Ltd., a $30 million fee for terminating the original agreement.
   Apollo-CEVA’s purchase price represents a premium of about 60 percent over $29.78, the closing price of EGL stock on Dec. 29, 2006, the last trading day before an initial proposal was made by the Crane group. It also represents a 25 percent premium over the $38.00-per-share consideration that was to be paid under the Crane group’s agreement.