CoStar counterbids $6.9 billion for real estate data group CoreLogic

(Reuters) - Commercial property data vendor CoStar Group Inc has made a $6.9 billion all-stock offer for CoreLogic Inc, gatecrashing a smaller buyout deal between the real estate data provider and two private equity firms.

The offer, announced by CoStar on Tuesday, is higher than the $6 billion deal CoreLogic and private equity firms Stone Point Capital and Insight Partners had agreed on earlier this month.

It consists of 0.1019 shares of CoStar's common stock in exchange for each share of CoreLogic, implying a value of about $95.76 per share. That represents a premium of 16.8% to CoreLogic's close on Friday.

Shares of CoreLogic jumped 5.8% to $86.76 in early trading, while CoStar slumped 6%.

CoreLogic said in a statement that its board would review CoStar's proposal while its previous agreement with the private equity firms remains in place.

Reuters had reported in October that CoStar and a private equity consortium led by Warburg Pincus and GTCR were among the bidders seeking to acquire CoreLogic.

The interest in CoreLogic comes after activist investors Senator Investment Group LP and Cannae Holdings Inc began pushing the company to seek a sale by mounting a $7 billion acquisition bid, which they abandoned once the sale process got underway.

CoStar said the proposed deal would triple its total addressable market and could potentially save hundreds of millions of dollars in duplicative costs.

The company also offered to pay a termination fee of $330 million to CoreLogic if the proposed deal does not close due to antitrust issues.

(Reporting by Ayanti Bera in Bengaluru; Editing by Aditya Soni)