Avon shares spike on purported offer from ‘non-existent firm’

Shares of Avon Products soared after an apparently non-existent firm based on an Indian Ocean island said it had offered to buy the company for almost three times its market value.

Avon said it had not received an offer. The purported offeror, which identified itself as PTG Capital Partners, said in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday that it would pay $18.75 per share for Avon.

That would value Avon at $8.15 billion, compared $2.90 billion at the close of trading on Wednesday.

Avon, whose shares rose as much as 20 per cent to $8 , said it was unable to confirm PTG's existence. The appearance of PTG follows a report on website Dealreporter. com in January that private equity firm TPG Capital was in deal talks with Avon.

In the filing, which contains multiple errors of grammar, PTG also refers to itself as TPG in places. The announcement also lifted chunks of paragraphs from the website of TPG to describe itself and provided a contact address that was similar to TPG's in Fort Worth, Texas.

TPG said it had no relation to PTG. Calls to the phone numbers listed for PTG were not answered.

Avon shares slipped from their highs to be 4.7 per cent higher at $6.99 in early afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.