A group of investment firms including Centerbridge Partners is preparing a new offer to buy Hertz Global Holdings Inc. out of bankruptcy, setting up a final showdown over the company in an auction next week, Bloomberg News reported. The group, led by Centerbridge, Warburg Pincus and Dundon Capital Partners, plans to sweeten a previous offer that was surpassed by a plan from Knighthead Capital Management and Certares Management. Terms of the new bid couldn’t immediately be learned, but any exit plan would be subject to bankruptcy court and board approval. The Knighthead and Certares plan assigned Hertz an enterprise value of around $6.2 billion and offered shareholders a mix of cash and warrants worth around $2.25 a share, Bloomberg previously reported. Hertz will review final proposals from both groups to determine if they meet its qualifications, and pick a winner in an auction currently scheduled for Monday. The Centerbridge group has until the end of Friday to submit a formal counteroffer, which kicks off the court-supervised auction process.
