Sale speculation swirls as Liberum squeezes out small investors
City broker’s clean-up strategy raises hackles; Nick Train on the defensive; and bedtime reading in the van Beurden household
Liberum: redemption day
Goodwill has been in short supply at Liberum, the employee-owned boutique broker, which is ringing in the festive season with a forcible squeeze on its own shareholders.
In July, Liberum’s board began a programme to simplify its capital structure by buying back so-called growth shares held by existing and former staff. Holders were advised to sell on the company’s internal marketplace to avoid a mandatory buy-in. The G shares, which carry equal voting and dividend rights to the ordinaries but add a redemption clause in the event of a listing, accounted for about a quarter of the total in issue at the start of the year.
With the clean-up now largely complete, holdouts this month received a letter that laid out the repurchase terms. They say Liberum has set its final offer at around a 30 per cent discount to the prevailing price. Liberum declined to comment on the terms offered.
Why have the holders resisted selling earlier? A suspicion among some is that Liberum has been tidying its ownership structure in mind of a potential sale, though company insiders insisted there was nothing happening to support that idea.
Liberum, which last year reported an £800,000 profit on revenue of £45.9m, is no stranger to takeover speculation. In 2018 it was approached by Macquarie, the Australian investment banking group, and has been linked before and since with numerous City mid-cap peers including Bob Diamond’s Panmure Gordon.