Apollo Global Management Interested In Bidding For Xerox: Report
A new player, Apollo Global Management, may be entering the ever-changing planned merger of Xerox and Fujifilm with a bid to acquire Xerox, Reuters reported Wednesday.
Such a bid, if it happened, would come at a time of great uncertainty in the proposed $2.6-billion merger, which has in the last few days been buffeted by a couple of major developments.
According to Reuters, Apollo Global Management, a New York-based investment manager, has approached Xerox with an interest in acquiring the printer and managed print service giant.
[Related: Xerox, Fujifilm Merger Temporarily Blocked By New York Judge]
Reuters, citing people familiar with that move by Apollo, also reported that there is no certainty such a deal would happen.
However, Reuters said, the new CEO of Xerox as of this week, John Visentin, previously served as the CEO of Novitex Enterprise Solutions and the chairman of Presidio. Apollo previously invested in those two companies.
Novitex Enterprise Solutions in July was acquired along with SourceHOV Holdings to form Exela Technologies, a New York-based provider of transaction processing solutions and enterprise information management. Apollo is an investor in Exela.
New York-based global solutions provider Presidio is currently majority-owned by funds affiliated with Apollo.
This has been a busy week for Xerox and Fujifilm watchers.
Xerox CEO Jeff Jacobson and six of the company's board members on Tuesday agreed to resign to avoid a proxy contest and to settle a lawsuit brought by investors who felt the merger was done without proper investor input.
On Friday, a judge granted an injunction sought by top shareholder Darwin Deason to temporarily halt the merger after agreeing with investors that Xerox and Fuji had not disclosed some important clauses in their decades-old joint venture that were material to the merger.
Spokespeople for both Apollo Global Management and Xerox told CRN that the companies declined to provide further information.