UPDATE 1-Apollo drops bid for Spanish industrial testing firm Applus
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Adds more details, Applus value in paragraph 3
May 17 (Reuters) - US fund Apollo APO.N has withdrawn its offer to buy Applus APPS.MC, it said on Friday in a filing to Spain's stock market regulator CNMV, ending a months-long bidding war for the Spanish industrial testing firm.
Apollo on one side and rival funds I Squared Capital Advisors and TDR Capital on the other filed two rival tender offers to acquire the company, kicking off a bidding war.
I Squared Capital Advisors and TDR Capital ultimately offered 12.78 euros ($13.86) per share, which values Applus at 1.65 billion euros. Apollo had offered 12.51 euros per share.
In a separate document on Friday, CNMV authorised that last price offered by I Squared and TDR.
For the offer to succeed it needs investors with more than 50% of the shares tender them to I Squared and TDR, the regulator said.
Since it made its first move to buy Applus last year, Apollo has bought a 21.85% stake in the company, based on data from LSEG.
The fund did not say whether it would tender its shares in Applus to the I Squared and TDR.
An Apollo spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
($1 = 0.9216 euros)
(Reporting by Matteo Allievi, editing by Inti Landauro and Jane Merriman)
((matteo.allievi@thomsonreuters.com;))