Anta Consortium Seeks $4 Billion to Fund Amer Purchase

(Bloomberg) -- China’s Anta Sports Products Ltd. and buyout firm FountainVest Partners Co. are in discussions with lenders for at least 3.5 billion euros ($4 billion) in loans to back a potential acquisition of Finland’s Amer Sports Oyj, people familiar with the matter said.

The investor group has proposed a 2.5 billion-euro recourse facility and another non-recourse loan of at least 1 billion euros to banks, said the people, who aren’t authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be identified. A total loan size of at least 3.5 billion euros could make it the biggest for a Chinese outbound acquisition this year, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Shares of Amer rose 0.6 percent to 34.62 euros at 6:07 p.m. Thursday in Helsinki, after earlier gaining as much as 3 percent.

Both the potential borrowing facilities for the acquisition are expected to have a five-year tenor, the people said. The financing would only be finalized if the Anta-led group proceeds to make a binding bid for Amer, according to the people.

Anta said last month it had joined with FountainVest to make an indicative offer of 40 euros per share for Amer, valuing the target at about 4.7 billion euros. The buyout consortium has been progressing in its negotiations over the potential takeover, Bloomberg News reported earlier this month.

An external representative for the Chinese buyer consortium declined to comment. Calls to Amer’s media and investor relations departments went unanswered.

--With assistance from Bei Hu.

To contact the reporters on this story: Carol Zhong in Hong Kong at yzhong71@bloomberg.net;Annie Lee in Hong Kong at olee42@bloomberg.net;Manuel Baigorri in Hong Kong at mbaigorri@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ben Scent at bscent@bloomberg.net, ;Neha D'silva at ndsilva1@bloomberg.net, Amy Thomson

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