Consortium ups bid for intu to £2.8bn

intu Victoria Centre

A consortium of property companies has upped its bid for shopping centre operator intu, which owns the Victoria and Broadmarsh centres in Nottingham and a mall in Derby.

The consortium is made up of The Peel Group, Olayan Group and Brookfield Property Group, and includes intu director John Whittaker who already owns 27% of the company.

The consortium made a 205p per share offer earlier this month, and it has emerged that earlier this week it upped that bid to 215p.

However, intu said in a statment this morning that the offer would be diluted by dividend payments to around 210.4p. This would value the company at £2.8bn

In a statment to the London Stock Exchange, intu said: “intu confirms that on 11 October 2018 it received an indicative proposal from the Consortium of 205 pence per share in cash.

“The independent committee formed by intu (comprising all directors of intu other than John Whittaker, who is connected to the Consortium) and its financial advisers met to consider the Indicative Proposal.

“Following further engagement, on 17 October 2018 intu received a revised indicative proposal from the Consortium of 215 pence per share in cash, subject to an adjustment for dividends.

“The terms of both the Initial Indicative Proposal of 205 pence per share and the Revised Indicative Proposal of 215 pence per share provide that the consideration will be reduced by any dividends or other distributions declared, payable or paid by intu prior to completion including the interim dividend of 4.6 pence per share due to be paid on 20 November 2018 (with an ex-dividend date of 18 October 2018).

“Accordingly, should any offer on the terms of the Revised Indicative Proposal be forthcoming the consideration would be 210.4 pence per share and may be reduced further by any other dividends or other distributions declared, payable or paid by intu prior to completion.

“Both proposals also included a number of pre-conditions and there can be no certainty (i) that any such pre-conditions will be satisfied or waived (ii) that any offer will be made or as to the terms of any such offer or (iii) that any offer, if made, will complete.

“In order to advance discussions regarding the possible announcement of a firm offer, the Independent Committee has resolved to grant the Consortium access to certain due diligence materials. A further announcement will be made when appropriate.”

The consortium now has until 1 November to make a firm offer for intu.

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