Lone Star’s bid for developer Quintain has been accepted by shareholders after the US private equity firm boosted its offer.
Lone Star passed its self-imposed 75% threshold for shareholder acceptance after it raised its bid from 131p a share to 141p last Friday.
This effectively raised the price Lone Star had to pay by around £45m.
Lone Star also increased its existing shareholding in Quintain by 4.3% of the voting stock, helping take shareholders’ acceptance of the offer from 71.7% to more than 76%.
The unconditional offer came just two days after the bid looked to have been derailed by the intervention of activist investor Elliott Capital Advisors.
At the time, Elliott believed that the original offer price of 131p was undervaluing the company and that Lone Star had failed to reach the 75% acceptance target for taking an offer unconditional.
The initial offer had already been recommended by the management of Quintain to shareholders, with over half accepting initially. Lone Star then extended the offer period by another two weeks until last Wednesday to drum up further support.
The offer finally accepted put the company’s value at £745m, a 31.8% premium to the share price of 107p on 28 July, the day before Lone Star made its initial offer for the company.
