Another top Just Eat (JE.) shareholder has opposed the £4.9billion hostile takeover of the food delivery firm – but said it would consider a price tag of nearly £1billion more. Aberdeen Standard Investments said the cash bid from Prosus of 710p per share ‘significantly undervalues’ the firm. It is the third major shareholder to come out against the bid. However, Aberdeen joined fellow shareholders SM Trust and Cat Rock in saying it would consider backing Prosus’s proposal if it increased its offer. Between them, the three investors control one fifth of the stock.
A new manager for the troubled Woodford Patient Capital Trust (WPCT) will be announced within days. The trust’s board has been seeking to fill the role after Neil Woodford quit last week, just hours after being fired from his separate Equity Income fund. His replacement, who could be announced this week, will have to run the Patient Capital Trust rather than winding it down, the Mail understands. Industry sources have pointed to private equity house Harbour Vest Partners as the most likely new manager, although its peer, Pantheon International, and the world’s largest asset manager, Blackrock, have also been suggested as possibilities. But the job of running the stock market-listed trust, stuffed full of difficult-to-sell, early-stage unlisted companies, is hardly in demand.
has appointed RSM as its new auditor, ending a six-week hunt for accountants after Grant Thornton resigned in September. It comes after the retailer scrambled to avoid Government intervention or possible suspension from the London Stock Exchange. Mike Ashley’s retail group will become RSM’s most high-profile client and its first in the FTSE 350. RSM mainly audits private companies as well as dozens of AIM-listed firms. It will start work with Sports Direct immediately. It recently also agreed to take on audit work for Patisserie Valerie – which collapsed due to accounting errors – from Grant Thornton.
Midatech Pharma (MTPH) sank after an unnamed American institutional investor agreed to buy 20% of the Cardiff-based biotechnology group. The investor will take the £2.3million stake by acquiring 3m American depository shares, which can be bought on a US stock exchange. But these value Midatech’s UK-traded stock at 3.9p each, much lower than it has traded at in recent months.
Rolls-Royce Holdings (RR.) revealed activist US investor Harris Associates, most notorious for pushing the Saatchi brothers out of their namesake ad agency, has taken a 5% stake. Problems with its Trent 1000 engines have been a headache for Rolls since 2016, when it was discovered that turbine blades were wearing out more quickly than expected. It has earmarked £1.6billion so far to deal with the fallout, alongside a sweeping turnaround orchestrated by chief executive Warren East. Harris looks for companies which are trading at a lower price than it believes they are worth, saying it only invests in firms that ‘offer significant profit potential’ and ‘are run by managers who think and act as owners’.
Sirius Minerals (SXX) ended slightly higher, up 0.01p, at 3.13p, after its first day of trading as a small-cap firm. The Government must respond to a Parliamentary petition with more than 11,000 signatures demanding the Treasury supports Sirius by offering a full loan guarantee for the troubled company, which last month failed to secure the cash needed to finish building its £4billion potash mine under the North York Moors National Park. Sirius blames the Government for derailing a financing package by not underwriting a loan.
