Australia's Appen gets $830 mln buyout offer from Canada's Telus, seeks more (updated)

TELUS International (CDA)

26/05/2022 01:16

(Adds details on deal, earnings, background)
    May 26 (Reuters) - Appen Ltd  APX.AX  said on Thursday it
received a non-binding buyout offer from Canadian business
process outsourcing firm Telus International  TIXT.TO , valuing
the Australian artificial intelligence firm at A$1.17 billion
($830 million).
    The A$9.50 per-share preliminary offer represents a 48.4%
premium to Appen's closing price on Wednesday.
    Appen, which has lost about a half of its market value this
year, said it was in talks with Telus for an improvement in the
terms of the proposal and that it had offered to provide limited
business and financial information to help the Canadian firm in
forming a revised bid.
    Telus could not be immediately reached for comment regarding
a revised proposal. 
    Appen, which boasts Facebook-owner Meta Platforms  FB.O  as
one of its largest customers, has been hit by slowing traffic at
the U.S. social media giant since the beginning of the year.
    In a short trading update, Appen also said it expected its
first-half core earnings to be materially lower than last year.
    The company, which provides data used to train AI
algorithms, had earlier this year scrapped its outlook for the
first time since going public in January 2015.   
        
    ($1 = 1.4096 Australian dollars)

 (Reporting by Jaskiran Singh; Editing by Devika Syamnath and
Subhranshu Sahu)
 ((Jaskiran.Singh@thomsonreuters.com;))