Cobham family fights on after £4bn sale

THE widow who led the campaign against the foreign takeover of major British defence firm Cobham last night called on the Government to intervene after shareholders waved through the deal.

Lady Cobham, the daughter-in-law of founder Sir Alan Cobham, wrote to Business Secretary Andrea Leadsom and urged her to secure legally binding commitments from private equity group Advent International.

The plea came after Cobham shareholders overwhelmingly approved the £4bn buyout at a crucial vote in London yesterday.

More than 93pc of shareholders voted in favour of the takeover, on a turnout of about 79pc, despite the deal attracting criticism from MPs, former defence secretaries, exstaff and the Cobham family.

Critics fear the takeover could pose a threat to the UK’s national security, weaken the defence industry and threaten jobs.

Lady Cobham, 76, said: ‘It is a tragedy that institutional shareholders have chosen to join Cobham’s directors in running up the white flag over the company. There is still time for the Government to show the backbone that management lacks and step in to protect a great British business before it’s sold to a dubious fate under private equity.’

Leadsom can still wade in to investigate – or even block – the deal.

Former Cobham boss Gordon Page told the Mail: ‘It’s a very sad day for those of us who showed a bit of resistance. I just hope someone in Government will step in to at least ask a few questions. I would be absolutely astonished if the Government didn’t ask some basic questions and get some basic guarantees from Advent.’

Opponents of the deal argued the 165pper-share offer was cut-price and failed to take into account Cobham’s future recovery after a torrid few years. Chief executive David Lockwood told reporters: ‘165p was fair. We didn’t say it was fantastic. We said it was fair – but it’s fair against some pretty ballsy assumptions about what we can achieve with the business.’

Lockwood is in line to get £6.4m from the buyout if he is awarded the maximum number of shares included in long-term performance programmes.

At the shareholder meeting, Cobham chairman Jamie Pike said management ‘pushed as hard as they could push’ and had engaged in some ‘arm wrestling’ with Advent before settling on the price.

Ahead of the vote, Lord Heseltine, who was defence secretary under Margaret Thatcher, argued that ‘no other country in the world would allow serious defence contractors to be sold without proper scrutiny’.

And Admiral Lord West, who was head of the Navy from 2002 to 2006, warned it would be ‘strategic madness’ for the UK to lose technologies Cobham has developed, such as inflight refuelling.

Speaking after the meeting, Lockwood said: ‘Our responsibility is to provide information to the Government as requested.’