Daisy Group receives £500m offer
Daisy Group, the British telecoms company, has received a take-private offer of almost £500m from a consortium of large shareholders led by its chief executive.
Toscafund, the largest shareholder, has teamed up with fellow investor Penta Capital and chief executive Matthew Riley to make the 185p per share cash offer for the AIM-quoted internet and telecoms services provider.
The 185p offer reflects a premium of 19.4 per cent on the share price at Thursday’s close, although this is slightly lower than the 190p a share preliminary approach made for the company in August.
The group of investors, which already owns 51.5 per cent of the stock, has since been in talks with the Takeover Panel. The consortium needed to make a firm bid or walk away from the deal by October 20.
Shares in Daisy rose almost 10 per cent in London to 170p on Friday after the announcement but fell back to near 160p by Friday afternoon. Daisy Group said that independent directors were “considering the revised terms of the possible cash offer”.
Mr Riley founded the business in 2001 to provide services including hosting and broadband internet connections to smaller business. Daisy has also developed a reputation for making its own acquisitions under Mr Riley since it listed in 2009. Daisy had also been in talks to sell to rival Liberty Global earlier this year.