Housebuilder and developer Swan Hill has received a takeover bid from Raven Mount, a new company run by Anton Bilton and Glyn Hirsch.
The unsolicited all-share bid, submitted on Wednesday, values Swan Hill at £46.8m, based on Tuesday’s closing price of 78.5p per share. Raven Mount will offer one of its own shares for each Swan Hill share.
If the bid succeeds, Raven Mount will be listed on the AIM and Swan Hill’s shareholders will hold 96% of its shares.
Raven Mount said it has received irrevocable undertakings to accept the offer from holders of nearly 52% of Swan Hill’s shares. It does not now hold any Swan Hill shares.
Raven’s directors will invest £2m of their own money in the new company.
Raven’s executive directors are Anton Bilton, founder of the Raven Group; Property Fund Management chairman Glyn Hirsch; and Bimaljit Sandhu, a former KPMG accountant with experience in property. Ex-MEPC director Robert Ware is among the non-executives.
Bilton said he and his partners had approached Swan Hill’s management 18 months ago but been rebuffed.
“We could see the hidden value in the company, and we want to get in to see if we can realise it through asset sales or running it differently.
“This is effectively an agreed bid, but agreed by the company’s owners not the management. We only spoke to the four main shareholders and all have supported us.”
Raven Mount said it was making the bid because it could narrow the discount to net asset value, now around 40%.
It said it would “undertake an immediate review of the Swan Hill businesses in order to determine the best method for maximising value for shareholders”.
On the day the deal was announced, Swan Hill’s share price rose 8.5p (11%) to 87p, from 78.5p.
Swan Hill said it could not comment until it had examined the full offer document.
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Swan Hill profile |
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Swan Hill is a mainly residential developer that built 80 homes in the six months to June (down from 148 for the same period in 2002) and made a pretax profit of £1.9m (2002: £3.7m). Turnover in its housing division fell to £27.3m at the half-year, from £39m in 2002. The commercial property division turned over less than £1m in the half year and made a profit of £132,000. Swan Hill said it intended to realise its commercial property assets and plough the cash back into housing. |
