LONDON (Reuters) – The controlling shareholders of the Daily Mail publisher, the Rothermere family, have increased the cash component of their offer to buy out other shareholders to 270 pence per share, up 5.9% on their original bid.
The Rothermeres agreed a deal to take Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) private last month after the sale of the group’s insurance business, Risk Management Solutions, and a listing of online car seller Cazoo, which it partly owned.
The increased offer is final and will not be increased, the family said on Thursday, adding it had lowered the threshold for acceptances to 50%. The Rothermeres and their associates control about 30% of the A shares and all ordinary shares of DMGT.
However, major shareholder Majedie Asset Management said the revised offer still fell short of its expectations.
“It is our opinion that this revised offer announced today represents a significant discount to our appraisal value of the residual DMGT businesses,” Majedie said in a statement.
Majedie said it owns 4.5% of the company, which would make it the fifth-biggest investor, according to Refinitiv data.
Shareholders last month were offered 255 pence in cash plus a special dividend of 568 pence and 0.5749 Cazoo shares for each DMGT share.
The special dividend and a 2021 proposed final dividend are unchanged in the increased offer.
Shareholders have until Dec. 16 to accept.
(Reporting by Paul Sandle and Simon Jessop; Editing by Keith Weir and Mark Potter)
