UK Coal is no longer in an offer period for the purposes of the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers after confirmation last Thursday that Hargreaves Services plc no longer wishes to proceed with its merger proposal. Hargreaves began initial negotiations with UK Coal on 9 March.
On Friday Brit Insurance rejected an offer of GBP 10 per share from private equity house, Apollo Global Management on 11 June. Brit’s Board, after reviewing the proposal, concluded it ‘significantly undervalued’ the Group. Brit’s market capitalization was around USD 572m at thee time.
The same day, Spain’s Banco Sabadell is in takeover talks with fellow listed firm, Banco Guipuzcoano. While no timeline has been given, the deal would be structured through an exchange of shares or other financial instruments.
Tuesday saw a multitude of M&A announcements. News Corp and BSkyB have been unable to agree on a price after the former announced its intention to make an offer for the 60.9% it does not already own. BskyB first received an offer of 675 pence in cash which was later increased to 700 pence. The Proposal values the fully diluted share capital of BSkyB, excluding the shares already owned by News Corp, at approximately GBP 7.8bn.
Also on Tuesday Cinven Limited confirmed, in response to share price movement in Spice plc that it was considering making an offer for the company. An offer price of GBp56 was indicated. The Board of spice has rejected this proposal and is not holding talks with Cinven.
Healthcare Locums is no longer in an offer period for the purposes of the City Code on Takeovers and Mergers since Tuesday. Both parties agreed to the termination of all talks. Healthcare Locums were initially approached on 9 April.
Later on Tuesday Austria’s conwert Immobilien Invest SE announced a voluntary takeover offer for ECO Business-Immoblien. The offer price per share is set at EUR 6.50 and comes at a premium of 16.5% over the previous close price of 14 June. The bidder currently holds a 24.9% stake in ECO Business-Immobilien.
Macquarie Atlas Roads (MQA) announced this morning that Eiffarie, in which it holds a 25% stake, intends to launch an offer for the then to be remaining free float of Autoroutes Paris-Rhin-Rhône (APRR). This is expected to commence after it completes an agreement with minority shareholders to acquire 13.73%, increasing its stake to 95.21%. This offer is planned to be launched at EUR 54.16 per share rendering an overall deal value of EUR 293m.
