Serviced offices group toast of the City thanks to Hands on approach
MULTI-MILLIONAIRE Mark Dixon is a big wine lover — and the founder of serviced offices group IWG might well have been raising a big glass to private equity big-wheel Guy Hands today.
Hands’s Terra Firma has thrown its hat into the ring to set up a possible three-way tussle for Dixon’s £3 billion office empire, formerly known as Regus, which is also beeing pursued by US property groups Starwood Capital and Prime Opportunities.
IWG said today it was scrutinising the unspecificed Terra Firma offer with advisers JPMorgan. But the City was licking its lips over the potential scrap, lifting IWG 9.1p, or 3%, to 325p. As a 25% owner of the business he set up 30 years ago, a sale would give Dixon the chance to spend more time with his burgeoning sideline in wine: alongside the Château De Berne estate in France, he also snapped up the Kingscote Estate in West Sussex last year.
More broadly the FTSE 100 was struggling to make headway as traders took some of the previous session’s big gains off the table, leaving the blue-chip benchmark 65.30 points lower at 7616.97. Index heavyweights BP and Royal Dutch Shell were a handbrake on progress as crude prices dipped in the wake of oil cartel Opec’s decision to increase production by a million barrels a day. BP was off 8.9p at 567.7p and its Anglo-Dutch rival shed 20p to 2589p. Markets were also subdued on more t ra d e s a b re -ra t t l i n g from Donald Trump after the US president floated plans to bar many Chinese companies from investing in US tech. The weaker sentiment hit Asian stocks overnight, denting early European trading.
An exception to the general malaise was Mr Kipling-to-Oxo maker Premier Foods after activist investor Oasis took aim at the chief executive Gavin Darby for “years of persistent shareholder value destruction”. Dealers thought the shares looked tasty on sale or break-up hopes, pushing Premier 1.1p, or 3%, up to 38.25p.
Heading the other way was gold miner Acacia Mining, which fell 8p, or 7%, to 110.6p as its crippling dispute over taxes in Tanzania rumbled on. Tanzania’s government banned ore exports last year and hit Acacia with a tax bill for a whopping $190 billion (£140 billion). Shares fell as majority shareholder Barrick Gold, which is negotiating on Acacia’s behalf, backed away from providing a deadline for the conclusion of the talks.