RPC Granted Extension for Takeover Talks With Apollo, Bain

(Bloomberg) -- U.K. packaging maker RPC Group Plc, which has a market value of 3.2 billion pounds ($4.2 billion), has received an extension on its takeover negotiations after a 5 p.m. deadline Monday set by local law lapsed without any firm offers.

Discussions with private equity firms Apollo Global Management LLC and Bain Capital are continuing, RPC said in a statement. Apollo and Bain now have until 5 p.m. on Nov. 5 to make a firm offer under the extension granted by the U.K.’s Panel on Takeovers and Mergers, according to the statement.

The company last month confirmed it’s in talks to sell itself to private equity firms Apollo or Bain after Bloomberg News first reported that it had received takeover interest. The discussions are preliminary and may not result in an offer, RPC said then.

Representatives Bain and Apollo declined to comment.

Shares of RPC, based in Rushden in Northamptonshire, England, had declined 4.5 percent in London on Monday, extending its rout in the past year to about 13 percent.

The British company, whose origins date to 1991 with a management buyout of five manufacturing sites in the U.K. from SCA, has about 25,000 employees in more than 30 countries, according to its website. It reported revenue of 3.75 billion pounds for the year ended March 31.

--With assistance from Dinesh Nair and Ruth David.

To contact the reporters on this story: Kiel Porter in New York at kporter17@bloomberg.net;Aaron Kirchfeld in London at akirchfeld@bloomberg.net;Sarah Syed in London at ssyed35@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Daniel Hauck at dhauck1@bloomberg.net, Chitra Somayaji, Michael Hytha

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