Snyder Sale on Fast Track as Rumors Stoke Stock

NEW YORK„Snyder Communications intends to move quickly to engineer a sale now that it has hired an investment bank to evaluate ways to maximize shareholder value.
If a suitable buyer can be found, the company expects ˜a definitive [sale] agreement before the end of the first quarter,” said Clay Perfall, chief financial officer of the Bethesda, Md.-based firm. Snyder has retained Deutsche Bank Alex. Brown to screen offers from potential suitors.
Snyder›s stock, a dud on Wall Street of late despite solid performances from its various operating units, surged almost 50 percent in the past two weeks after word leaked out that chairman Daniel Snyder and his sister, company president Michelle Snyder, received an unsolicited takeover bid, estimated by sources to be in the mid-$20s per share, for the company.