PARIS (Reuters) - Suez announced on Sunday that it was ready to enter into discussions with Veolia, but on the basis of a firm offer to take over Suez presented the same day by investment fund Ardian and Global Infrastructure Partners (GIP).
Ardian and GIP announced in a separate press release that they proposed to take over most of Suez's activities for an amount of 11.9 billion euros (15.8 billion in enterprise value), or the equivalent of 20 euros per action.
The Suez group, specializing in collective services, has been the target of a hostile takeover offer from its competitor Veolia since last summer.