Billabong Requests Trading Halt on their Stocks.

Billabong shares have been placed in a trading halt until Thursday, April 4 or until the company releases an announcement about negotiations with two bidders regarding discussions to purchase the company.

Billabong issued another trading halt on March 21 and had expected the purchase negotiations to be wrapped up by the end of March.

Billabong is in discussions with two groups including one led by fomer Billabong Americas President Paul Naude who partnered with Sycamore on a $1.10/share bid at the end of last year. The other suitor is a consortium made up of VF Corp and Altamont Capital Partners, who matched Naude’s group’s bid.

Analysts believe the bids have been substantially reduced following due diligence which led several other suitors to rescind their bids.

According to World News Australia: IG Markets market strategist Stan Shamu said there was speculation that the takeover bids for Billabong would be lowered: “The price action (the Billabong share price) has been suggesting that for a while,” Mr Shamu said.

Mr Shamu said the bid price for Billabong could be lowered to around 80 cents per share, which was still positive given that Billabong last traded at 73 cents.