The bosses of British life science firm Instem scooped a multi-million-pound windfall after pushing through a £203m buyout yesterday vehemently opposed by major shareholders.
A crunch vote on the Staffordshire company’s future came down to the wire but investors eventually backed the 883p per share offer from French private equity firm Archimed.
The Aim-listed group’s biggest shareholders opposed the deal, saying it undervalued the firm.
A crunch vote on the Staffordshire company’s future came down to the wire but investors eventually backed the 883p per share offer from French private equity firm Archimed
Chairman David Gare, who founded Instem in 1969, will make £11.4m by offloading his 5.7pc stake.
And chief executive Philip Reason, who owns 3.37pc, will pocket £6.8m from the sale.
The board needed the approval of investors holding 75pc of the stock for the offer to get the green light.
In total, 24.05pc voted against the deal, just short of the threshold required to block it, and it secured the approval of 75.95pc.
Instem’s two largest shareholders, Liontrust and BGF, had announced their intention to oppose the offer.
Liontrust said too many listed UK firms are ‘sitting ducks’ vulnerable to ‘private equity taking them over at prices which do not reflect the intrinsic value of these businesses’.
‘Instem, in particular, is an example of where the team feel strongly that the takeover price offered does not reflect the longterm value of the business,’ added Liontrust, which is the biggest investor in Instem, with a 11.95pc stake.
BGF Investment Management, with 8.53pc, argued the price undervalued it, saying the offer was a discount to Instem’s share price peak of 905p in 2021.
‘With some of the big shareholders voting against it is a sign of some unease about the disappearance of another UK firm from the public markets,’ Chris Beauchamp, markets analyst at IG Group, said.
‘But the declines since 2021 have made Instem and doubtless others much more attractive for buyout firms.’
Instem shares climbed 8.9pc, or 67.5p, to 827.5p
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