MoneyGram Offers Confidential Info To Euronet

MoneyGram has offered to share confidential company data with Euronet.  The offer comes following Euronet’s $1 billion bid to acquire MoneyGram.

According to reports, MoneyGram has determined that Euronet’s cash offer of $15.20 per share could likely end up being the superior acquisition offer MoneyGram is pondering at present — the other being the $13.25 a share in cash offered (and agreed to by MoneyGram) by Ant Financial in January.

Because Euronet and MoneyGram are direct competitors in some arenas, the former firm will have to agree to a non-disclosure agreement before it carries out its full due diligence on MoneyGram. That agreement could take the better part of the the first half of this week to iron out.

All in all, it is expected that Euronet will need about a week to go through MoneyGram’s financials before finalizing the offer.  MoneyGram will also be receiving some confidential data from Euronet so it can better analyze the possibility of the deal being scuttled on antitrust issues.

Should MoneyGram declare Euronet’s bid superior, Ant Financial will have four business days to decide whether it wants to improve its offer. As of yet, none of the three firms involved have any new comment to offer.

Ant Financial — as a foreign-held firm — must now be reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CIFIUS), the official government panel tasked with assessing the security risk inherent in potential deals. CIFIUS can be a high hurdle to clear, and several deals between Chinese firms seeking to acquire U.S. resources fell apart in 2016 under the watchful eye of CIFIUS. Many experts believe this could end up being a massive regulatory hurdle for the MoneyGram-Ant Financial deal to clear.

If MoneyGram pulls out of their deal with Ant, however, it will cost them. MoneyGram faces a $30 million termination fee if it abandons the deal for another bid.