Seat says investors have no restructuring plans

MILAN, Oct 14 (Reuters) – The private equity firms behind Seat Pagine Gialle SpA ruled out a restructuring of their investment on Tuesday which could have triggered a full bid for the Italian yellow pages publisher.

BC Partners, CVC Capital Partners, Investitori Associati and Permira had no such plans because they would then be forced to make a bid for the remaining shares in Seat, a statement released by Seat on Tuesday said.

‘They do not intend to pursue the aforesaid restructuring in light … of the obligation to launch a mandatory tender offer that its execution would trigger,’ it said.

The firms together own about 50 percent of Seat’s equity.

Seat shares shot up 21.84 percent to 0.0715 euros after earlier being suspended from trade for excessive gains in Milan.

Market expectations of a possible takeover by the private equity firms heightened this week after market regulator Consob said investors who wanted to pool their stakes in a company would be obliged to make a bid for the remaining shares in that company.

Consob’s comment was made after the private equity firms asked the regulator about the implications of a restructuring of their investment in the company, Seat said.

(Reporting by Gilles Castonguay; Editing by Paul Bolding) Keywords: SEAT/

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