The Virtus Health Ltd (ASX: VRT) share price is frozen today amid a bidding war for the company.
The company's shares were trading at $8.15 before grinding to a halt. In yesterday's trade, the Virtus Health share price climbed 1.37%.
Virtus Health is a fertility treatment company with operations in Australia, Ireland, Denmark, the UK, and Singapore.
Let's take a look at why the company's share price is on hold.
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Bidding contest heats up
Virtus Health has entered a trading halt amid a new takeover proposal from CapVest Partners LLP.
Virtus was notified of CapVest's revised offer this morning but is still waiting on more information. CapVest first made an offer to buy the company in January.
In a statement signed by the company secretary, Virtus Health said:
The trading halt is necessary as the company has been notified this morning that CapVest Partners LLP (CapVest) intends to submit a revised proposal to Virtus but no details of the terms of that revised proposal have been provided at this time.
Accordingly, Virtus considers a trading halt to be appropriate to prevent trading in its securities taking place in an uninformed market.
CapVest is not the only company vying for Virtus Health. Just yesterday, BGH Capital proposed a revised $8 per share off-market takeover bid to Virtus shareholders.
The Virtus Board said it was considering if this bid constituted a superior proposal to that signed with CapVest. In March, Virtus signed a transaction implementation deed with CapVest on a 100% takeover proposal which valued the company at $8.25 per share.
In total, eight competing proposals have now been received by Virtus Health.
Virtus Health share price snapshot
The Virtus Health share price has surged 27% in a year and almost 19% this year to date.
The company's shares have jumped 4% in the past month, while they are climbing nearly 2% in the past week alone.
For perspective, the S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) has returned about 8% over the past year.
The company has a market capitalisation of about $697 million based on the current share price.
