Owner’s bid for outright control hits hotel group
SHARES in Millennium & Copthorne dived after shareholders rejected its billionaire owner’s bid to take outright control.
Kwek Leng Beng, the chairman of M&C who already owns 65.2pc of the hotel group through his investment vehicle City Developments Limited, had offered £2bn to buy the rest of the firm in December.
But the bid drew criticism from minority shareholders International Value Advisers, MSD Partners and Classic Fund Management, which claimed the offer, of 620p per share, was ‘highly opportunistic’ and played down the value of the hotel chain’s assets.
The trio, which together represent around 37pc of the shares not owned by Beng, had urged other minority shareholders not to back CDL’s offer.
Yesterday CDL said its offer had lapsed after receiving the backing of 47.1pc of shareholders – just shy of the 50pc it needed for the deal to go through.
Shares in Millennium & Copthorne – which owns seven sites in the capital, including the Chelsea Harbour Hotel and the Millennium Hotel in Mayfair – initially plunged more than 10pc following the news, before finishing down 4.7pc, or 27p, at 546p.
Investors worked up an appetite for Just Eat after analysts said the takeaway company could be a possible takeover target.
The upstart jumped 2.2pc, or 17.6p, to 819.4p after RBC Capital said its sophisticated data software could prove attractive to Dutch rival Takeaway and give it greater influence to compete with Delivery Hero in Germany.
The note, which considered the most likely internet mergerand-acquisition scenarios, also mulled the possibility of a takeover of Ocado and Asos. It said Asos, Ocado and German fashion website Zalando were the ‘ most likely take-out candidates’ in its coverage and lifted their price targets to 8100p from 7400p, 525p from 320p and €41 from €35 respectively.
Ocado has been plagued with takeover speculation, with American grocery giant Walmart rumoured to be mulling an bid for the online grocer.
RBC said its new price target reflects its anticipation for a deal being signed.
It said Asos and Zalando could be a target for Vera Moda owner Bestseller, which already owns 29.5pc of Asos shares and 10pc of Zalando’s shares – citing Richemont’s bid for control of Yoox Net-aPorter earlier this week as precedent for such a deal.
It said: ‘For the same reason that Richemont acquired Yoox Net-aPorter, Bestseller could hypothetically seek to strengthen its efforts in ecommerce by taking full control of either group.’
RBC however, did also open up the possibility of a third party bidder such as Amazon swooping in on the websites to bolster its fashion business.
It said the move could force Asos and Zalando to consider a merger of their own in order to fend off the threat.
The comments sent Asos up 5.5pc, or 390p, to 7470p but Ocado dipped 4.7pc, or 24.2p, to 494.8p.
The FTSE 100 finished up 0.65pc, or 49.7 points at 7665.54.
British water companies were given the flush after bankers at Goldman Sachs said the sector is unattractively valued and faces increased risks due to the threat of a Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn.
The investment bank said the prospect of rising interest rates and risk from changes in political leadership mean the sector is poorly placed in comparison to its European rivals.
Severn Trent was flat at 2010p but Pennon and United Utilities finished up 0.03pc, or 0.2p, at 727.2p and 1.1pc, or 7.8p, at 748p respectively following the news.