Another day, another takeover in deals frenzy

Will the last company listed on the london stock market please turn out the lights?

While the situation might not be that dire yet, another firm is close to falling into private hands.

Tech group Smartspace Software, whose platform allows businesses to book office spaces, has agreed to a £28.35m takeover.

it said the 90p-a-share offer that was first proposed towards the end of January by Sign in Solutions (SiS), which is backed by venture capital firm PSG, is ‘fair and reasonable’.

Nearly half of Smartspace shareholders have either backed the deal or expressed their intention to do so, according to SiS.

At least 75pc must approve the takeover for it to happen.

Smartspace soared 15.3pc, or 11.5p, to 86.5p.

The City has already seen haulier Wincanton and telecoms testing group Spirent swooped on by US predators while Currys and Direct line are also attracting attention from overseas.

Smartspace became a takeover target at the end of last year after it revealed Skedda, an online booking and scheduling platform, proposed an 82p-a-share offer.

But the company said it would recommend the one from SiS to shareholders. Skedda decided to walk away from talks on February 19. Bidding wars have also swept over the UK’s real estate investment trust sector. Abrdn Property Income once again told its shareholders to back the merger proposal from Custodian rather than the one from Urban logistics.

Shares in Abrdn Property income rose 0.9pc, or 0.5p, to 55.5p while Custodian Property Income REIT dropped 4.7pc, or 3.6p, to 73.9p and Urban logistics REiT added 0.7pc, or 0.8p, to 117.6p.

The FTSE 100 fell 0.4pc, or 29.02 points, to 7743.15 and the FTSE 250 was down 0.4pc, or 77.91 points, to 19,486.01.

Trainline shares soared to an 18-month high after its ticket sales rose by more than a fifth to £5.3bn in the year to the end of February. The online ticketing app’s UK sales shot up by 23pc to £3.5bn due to fewer strikes. Chief executive Jody Ford said Trainline was a ‘ home-grown British tech success that has scaled beyond domestic borders to become Europe’s most downloaded rail app’. Shares surged 13.02pc, or 42.6p, to 369.8p – their highest since September 2022.

Housebuilder Vistry was also on the rise – up 8.2pc, or 91p, to 1,207p – after it said it sold 16,118 new homes in 2023, more than a third higher than the year before.

it remains on track to build more than 17,500 this year.

Savills remained optimistic that business would improve as it expects the market to recover during the second half of this year and into 2025.

The estate agent’s revenues fell 3pc last year to £2.24bn while profits tumbled by almost twothirds to £55.4m due to the continuing economic pressures.

AstraZeneca is to buy Amolyt, a clinical- stage biotech company developing treatments for rare diseases, in a £820m deal. The Anglo-Swedish pharma giant slid 0.5pc, or 56p, to 10,402p.

■ABINGDON Health is on course to break even this year thanks to a strong pipeline of new lateral flow test contracts.

Revenues more than doubled to £2.4m in the six months to December 31 as losses halved to £1.2m. The York group is working on 29 lateral flow projects, and expects sales for the year to June 30 to be higher than the £4m of the year before.

Shares jumped 28.2pc, or 1.91p, to 8.66p, having peaked at 125.6p in 2021.