Currys’ largest shareholder has supported the board’s decision to reject an initial takeover offer from Elliott Advisors, claiming the offer “highlighted a wider problem with the UK equity market”.
Redwheel, which owns 14.6% of shares, said it was in “complete agreement” with the board over its decision to reject the £700m bid from the Waterstones owner last week.
It agreed that Currys was “worth substantially more” than the book shop owners 62p-a-share offer.
Shares in the electricals giant skyrocketed on Monday following news of takeover interest from Chinese shopping giant JD.com. Currys is currently trading at 65.2p-a-share.
Subscribe to Retail Gazette for free
Sign up here to get the latest news straight into your inbox each morning
Redwheel said the takeover approach highlighted a “wider problem with the UK equity market”, with areas of the stock market valued “significantly below” their worth as investors shifted their focus to the US.
The investor’s co-head of the UK value and income team Ian Lance said: “Unless this changes, it seems likely that we will continue to see overseas corporate buyers step in to take advantage of the depressed valuations of UK equities with ownership falling into foreign hands and the number of quoted UK businesses will continue to decline.”
He said authorities in the country needed to “incentivise investors to allocate to UK equities and save an integral cog of the country’s financial ecosystem”, adding that “a healthy equity market is beneficial to the functioning of the economy”.
Click here to sign up to Retail Gazette‘s free daily email newsletter
