The Rothermere family has made an offer to take the publisher of the Daily Mail, i and Metro private in a £3.1bn deal, in a move that will end a 90-year run as a publicly listed company on the London Stock Exchange.
According to Reuters, the family, which founded the Daily Mail in 1896 and listed parent company Daily Mail and General Trust in 1932, has tabled a 255p per share offer valuing the newspaper business at £850m including debt.
The Rothermere’s Jersey-registered holding company Rothermere Continuation Ltd (RCL) initially proposed a 251p offer in July for the 64% of DMGT it did not already control, provided a number of preconditions were met.
The value of the offer is slightly higher than indicated in July, and represents a 21.5% premium to the closing price of the stock on the day before the plan was announced.
However one large investor, Majedie Asset Management, said the offer was “substantially below” what it believes is a fair and reasonable valuation.
The Daily Mail was first published in 1896 by the ancestors of DMGT chairman Jonathan Harmsworth, the Viscount Rothermere.
He said DMGT was a considerably smaller business following the sale of RMS and the listing of Cazoo, with significantly greater exposure to consumer media.
“We believe the terms of our offer to be fair, particularly bearing in mind not only the existing level of debt within DMGT at a time of increasingly difficult market conditions, but also the restrictions imposed on the operation of the business as part of the settlement with the pension trustees,” he said.
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