It certainly has been an eventful day for the Appen Ltd (ASX: APX) share price.
The artificial intelligence services company's shares rocketed higher this morning after it received a takeover approach.
Less than a trading session later, the Appen share price has been slammed into a trading halt pending the release of another announcement.
What's going on with the Appen share price?
This morning Appen received an unsolicited, conditional, and non-binding indicative proposal from Canada's Telus International to acquire it for $9.50 per share. This represented a 48% premium to the Appen share price at yesterday's close and valued the company at approximately $1.2 billion.
And while the Appen board revealed that it would engage with Telus and grant it due diligence, it suggested that the offer would not be enough to get a deal over the line. It said:
The Board is in discussions with Telus to seek an improvement in the terms of the Indicative Proposal. To facilitate this, the Board has offered to provide, on a non-exclusive basis, limited business and financial information, subject to Telus agreeing to enter into a mutually acceptable confidentiality and standstill agreement, which it has yet to execute. At this point in time, no material non-public information has been provided to Telus.
What's the latest?
While details are light at this stage, Appen's trading halt request states:
The trading halt is requested in light of developments with respect to the non-binding indicative proposal announced in relation to Appen earlier today.
Appen requests that the trading halt remain in place until the earlier of: (1) Appen making an announcement regarding the developments with respect to the proposal; and (2) Monday, 30 May 2022.
Although there has been speculation that a private equity firm is also circling, this request appears to suggest that the announcement will be in relation to the offer that has already been tabled.
If that is the case, there are a couple of potential scenarios. One is that Telus has had a quick look at the books and has seen enough to up its offer.
The other is that it was so horrified with what it saw that it withdrew its offer and caught the first flight back to Canada.
Unfortunately, investors will need to be patient and wait until tomorrow or Monday before getting an answer.
