Gavel falls on bid for auctioneer Geoff Foster
BIG or small, everything is up for grabs in this bid-crazed marketplace. Shares of John Swan & Sons jumped 175p or 15pc to £13 after H&H Group launched an £8.2m cash offer of 1350p for the Edinburgh-based livestock auction business founded in 1856.
H&H first announced its predatory intentions in December 2014.
It is also offering a share alternative to the cash offer on the basis of 0.574 unlisted H&H shares for each John Swan share up to a maximum of 217,593.
H&H has headquarters in Carlisle and has interests spanning land and property, classic car auctions and insurance broking.
Chairman Michael Cowen said: ‘The John Swan business has and will strengthen considerably our position in Scotland. We will look to introduce our land agency and insurance businesses, which have strong rural connection, into John Swan’s market area to develop new income streams and provide the same services to John Swan customers that H&H customers have found beneficial.’
During the late 1800s and early 1900s John Swan ran mart operations across Scotland. However, the Edinburgh site closed in 2001 after falling victim to the foot and mouth crisis and the company now trades out of Newtown St Boswells and Wooler.
Hellermann Tyton, the maker of cables and related products whose chairman is former GEC finance director David Newlands, powered 138.4p or 42pc ahead to 470.5p on receiving a £1.07bn takeover approach from UK-based but US-listed car parts group Delphi Automotive. Delphi revealed both boards had reached agreement on a 480p per share cash offer and the transaction is expected to be signed off in the fourth quarter of 2015.
From actual to rumoured takeover situations. Reported in this column in late April, Crowne Plaza-to-Holiday Inn chain Inter- continental Hotels Group rose 120p to 2743p amid growing speculation that it is close to climbing into bed with Starwood Hotels & Resorts, which owns the St Regis and Westin hotel brands.
IHG touched 2967p in April on hearing that Starwood had hired investment bank Lazard to ‘explore a full range of strategic and finance alternatives to increase shareholder value’. Experts then took the view that it would lead to a merger with a rival.
IHG raised its interim dividend 10pc to 17.6p a share after half-year revenues edged up 1pc to £586.5m and profits jumped to £293.6m. But after the market closed, IHG’s directors said they were not in talks with Starwood about combining the businesses.
Favourable trading news from a lengthy list of blue chip companies helped the Footsie improve 37.87 points further to 6668.87. Wall Street closed 5.41 points down at 17,745.98 following disappointing earnings figures from Facebook and Procter & Gamble.
Latest gross domestic product data also showed that the world’s biggest economy expanded at a slower-than-expected pace at 2.3pc in the second-quarter, compared with expectations of a 2.6pc increase.
After warning that revenue from oil and gas would be lower in the first-half of the year, Babcock International fell 53.5p to 985.5p.
Babcock, whose largest customer is Britain’s Ministry of Defence, said its order book had remained stable at £20bn along with its bid pipeline of £10.5bn.
Laird gained 50.3p to 400.1p after the electric components maker reported a strong first-half trading performance and said the full-year will be on target. Interim pre-tax profits surged to £2 from £16m last time.
Premium and luxury car retailer Inchcape, 49.5p better at 802p, travelled in the fast lane after wheeling out better-than- expected interim results, a 7.9pc dividend increase to 6.8p a share and a share buyback of £100m.
Stockbroker Numis shed 4.75p to 260.5p. It has acquired an 8.5pc stake in crowdfunding platform Crowdcube for an undisclosed amount. Crowdcube has raised almost £100m of investment through its platform since its launch in 2011, and amassed a 200,000-strong investor community.
Institutional stockbroker Arden Partners fell 2.5p to 39.5p following widening interim losses to £1.2m, more-than- double the £0.47m recorded last year. Revenue dropped 22pc year on year, to £2.7m.
Radiation detection technology company Kromek slumped 5.38p, or 15pc, to 29.5p following plans to raise £11m via a heavily discounted placing of 36m shares at 25p a pop as well as an additional 8m shares in an open offer at the same price.
The company has secured a number of contracts in the nuclear detection field, including a contract with an agency working for the US Department of Defence. Losses for the year narrowed 28pc on the year to £3.1m.
Loss-making All Leisure Group lost 3.5p to 9p. Panmure Gordon cut its target price to 12p from 34p after disappointing interims. ÷ SHORE Capital’s food retailing guru Clive Black is a seller of J. Sainsbury, 0.8p off at 260.8p. He believes the pips could be squeaking following the board’s decision to sell its in-store pharmacies to Celesio’s UK operation, Lloyd’s. Sainsbury receives £125m in cash and unloads 2500 staff from its payroll. It follows on from a bond issue, which Black believes to be a potentially very expensive source of financing.