Cerberus, Colony Capital make new bids for Abraaj funds: report

New York-based Cerberus Capital Management LP and US investment manager Colony Capital Inc. submitted fresh bids to acquire Dubai-based Abraaj Group, as the private equity firm works on a court-supervised restructuring, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing unnamed sources with knowledge of the matter.

Cerberus made an offer for all of Abraaj’s funds, but has not offered to buy the limited-partnership assets in the underlying funds.

Cerberus was in talks with Abraaj to acquire its funds before Colony reached a preliminary agreement last month.

Colony made a revised offer for some of the funds, as well as its limited-partnership stakes in the underlying funds, and these are being reviewed by provisional liquidators Deloitte and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Talks are ongoing for the sale of the firm’s asset management business are ongoing, a spokeswoman for Abraaj told Bloomberg News, without providing any additional details.

Abraaj has been thrown into turmoil by a dispute with four investors, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and International Finance Corp (IFC), over the use of their money in a $1 billion healthcare fund.

In June, Colony proposed to buy the fund management business that runs Abraaj’s Latin America, Sub Saharan Africa, North Africa and Turkey funds. Colony’s agreement to acquire four Abraaj funds was due to be completed by July 1.

A Cayman Islands court will decide on July 11 whether to approve Colony Capital’s deal to take control of four funds belonging to the private equity firm.