APOLLO and ground-breaking missions of accomplishment have long been synonymous. Right now, for the USbased investment firm of the same name, simply getting the takeover of a UK-listed company over the line would rank alongside the lunar landings as an achievement.

In the space of a week, Apollo Global Management has abandoned offers for THG, the online beauty and nutrition retailer, and Wood Group, the oil and gas engineering company - the latter after five written takeover proposals and several months of pursuit.

Bankers frequently complain that public-toprivate deals have become acutely difficult in recent years after revisions to the UK takeover code. Apollo's flakiness can only exacerbate that sentiment.

Boards' fiduciary obligation to take seriously any bona fide offeror who comes knocking is now at risk of causing their directors major embarrassment. In Wood Group's case, countless board meetings, substantial advisory fees and the inevitable distraction from running its business might all be put down to the everyday perils of life as a listed company.

The risk feels asymmetrical, however. True, Apollo itself incurred substantial financial costs from its forays into the THG and Wood boardrooms. These were, however, minuscule in the context of its global scale and $550bn of assets under management.

Tyre-kicking is, of course, part and parcel of a private equity investor's approach to sizing up deal opportunities. But add RPC Group, Pearson, William Hill and Wm Morrison to the list of public companies that Apollo has approached and failed to consummate a deal with in recent times, and a pattern is obvious.

"Taking companies private in the UK is hard enough," a rival buyout firm executive lamented. "Apollo is going to make it harder for the whole industry."

The private equity firm headed by Marc Rowan shouldn't, then, be surprised if boards seek to insert more antiembarrassment measures like go-shop clauses into future negotiations with it. Apollo's next UK mission looks like being even tougher to pull off.

(c) 2023 City A.M., source Newspaper