MITIE agreed to a £3.1bn takeover by OCS, with shareholders offered 221.6p in cash per share. The offer sent Mitie’s stock up 40.5 per cent in early trading to 212.2p, leaving existing holders with a cash exit priced well above where the shares closed on 20 July.
221.6p a share is split between 218.5p in cash and a final dividend of up to 3.1p, a 44.7 premium to Mitie’s closing share price on 20 July. Chris Rogers said the board believed OCS’s offer recognised the strength of the business, the progress achieved in recent years and the opportunities ahead.
Chris Rogers backs cash exit
44.7 per cent is the premium that will shape the shareholder vote, because Mitie’s board considered the terms fair and reasonable and planned to vote its own shares in favour. Rogers said the board had unanimously concluded that the offer represented an attractive outcome for shareholders and delivered the certainty of cash consideration.
40.5 per cent was the jump in Mitie’s share price in early trading, which brought it to 212.2p and left the market close to OCS’s headline offer. That gap matters because the deal removes another FTSE 250-listed company from the London Stock Exchange, turning a trading pop into a likely exit from public ownership if shareholders back the board’s recommendation.
London market exits pile up
£4.1bn was the size of the Rotork deal last week, struck at a 73 per cent premium. Beazley went to Zurich for £8.1bn at a 59.8 per cent premium, while Nuveen bought Schroders for £9.9bn at a 34 per cent premium, giving this latest transaction a place in a run of expensive takeouts.
Seven listings in the first half of the year raised £577.2m, with a total market value of £2.2bn, a thin pipeline beside the pace of takeovers. Fine wrote on Linkedin that the equity market is a strategic national asset, and added that when companies list elsewhere or are acquired and disappear from the market, the impact extends far beyond stamp duty.
Mitie shareholders face the vote
221.6p is now the price level Mitie shareholders must weigh against the loss of another London-listed name. OCS said the deal would create a British firm better positioned to support the organisations that keep the country running, but the immediate test is whether holders accept cash now or push back on a sale that the board has already lined up for approval.
