“Put up or shut up”, regulator tells Somerfield bidders |
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Published
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Mon, 19 Sep 2005 06:05
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LONDON - The Takeover Panel has decided to give potential bidders for supermarket chain Somerfield till October to declare their intentions. The regulator has ordered these bidders to either table a concrete offer by October 14 or walk away from the whole process.
This "put up or shut up" notice comes in the wake of a long-running takeover battle that has really not come out of the planning stage as of now. The Panel added that two potential bidders were assessing the Bristol-based supermarket group. The £1.13billion battle for the chain has reached a critical stage with this new order.
Property tycoon Robert Tchenguiz, private equity group Apax and Barclays Capital have formed a consortium to takeover the chain and they are facing a stiff battle from property group London & Regional and Japanese bank Nomura. However, any formal offer has not been made and perhaps this prompted Somerfield to take the unprecedented step to ask the regulator to intervene.
This deadline has come as a surprise to the group led by London & Regional, which issued a statement saying, "We felt that Somerfield knew what timetable we were working towards. And we are in constant contact with the Takeover Panel. We're not sure why Somerfield has done this." On its part, Somerfield wants a quick resolution to this battle, which has been dragging on for over a year. Baugur had shown an interest in the supermarket only to withdraw it after chief executive Jon Asgeir Johannesson was charged with fraud.
Somerfield had allowed both parties access to its books hoping that the matter would be resolved quickly. Since this has not happened, the chain took it upon itself to ensure that the issue was brought out into the open. Somerfield shares were down by ¼ to 201½ pence at close yesterday.
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