Private investment firm Chatham Asset Management LLC on Tuesday outbid an earlier offer from Atlas Holdings LLC for printing company R.R. Donnelley & Sons Co. . Chatham said it would pay $9.10 a share for R.R. Donnelley, higher than a Nov. 3 offer of $8.52 a share from Atlas Holdings. Chatham would increase its price to $9.34 a share if the Atlas termination fee is eliminated. Chatham said its offer is worth $47.9 million to $67.9 million more than Atlas’ offer. Chatham currently manages funds that own about 14.9% of the outstanding common stock of R.R. Donnelley. Chatham said it received a debt commitment from Jefferies Finance LLC of up to $1.675 billion, plus it’s committing $100 million of additional capital, rolling over all shares of common stock of RRD that it owns and equitizing or subordinating into PIK instruments up to $748.4 million of the aggregate principal amount of RRD’s outstanding notes which Chatham currently owns. This debt amounts to about 53.9% of R.R. Donnelley’s outstanding notes. Shares of R.R. Donnelly are up 305% this year, compared to a rise of 24.7% by the S&P 500. Shares closed at $9.18 a share on Monday.
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