Ingenia Communities hits 7.1% gain on $1.5 billion buyout offer

(Updates with share move in bullet 7) Sept 28 (Reuters) — Australia's Ingenia Communities Group said on Monday it was assessing an improved A$2.14 billion ($1.50 billion) buyout offer from private equity firm Warburg Pincus after rejecting two earlier bids, sending its shares sharply higher. Here are some more details: The latest offer, at A$5.25 per share, is nearly 4% higher than the previous bid of A$5.05 apiece, or A$2.06 billion, and represents a 16.7% premium to the stock's last close. It is 10.5% higher than the initial approach of A$4.75 per share, or A$1.94 billion. Ingenia had rejected the previous two proposals, saying they "substantially" undervalued the firm. In the current offer, Warburg Pincus retained the earlier condition that Ingenia abandon its planned $711-million acquisition of master-planned communities developer Peet, a deal Ingenia sees as central to its strategy. Ingenia said its board was assessing the revised proposal and had not yet formed a view on the offer or its conditions. The board did not make any recommendation to shareholders with respect to the offer. Ingenia shares rose as much as 7.1% to hit their highest level since late January. The stock has climbed nearly 30% since early September when the firm first said it had been approached with a buyout offer. ($1 = 1.4261 Australian dollars) (Reporting by Jasmeen Ara Shaikh in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu) ((mailto:JasmeenAraIslam.Shaikh@thomsonreuters.com;)