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Private Equity Group Advent International has agreed to buy the industrial company Spectlis for a £4.4 billion deal, marking one of the recent acquisitions of the London-registered business.
Under the deal announced Monday, shareholders of Precision Measurement Instruments Maker will receive £37.63 in cash in cash, including a 28p interim dividend.
The offer represents a nearly 85% premium on the company’s stock price on June 6th, and announces the latest abolition of UK listed companies as buyers are using relatively cheap valuations before Advent’s profits first appear.
A member of Mid-Cap FTSE 250, Spectris offers high-tech instruments to companies in the industry, including pharmaceuticals and semiconductors. It reported sales of £299 million in the first quarter. This is a decline since the same period last year amid a decline in the market, including automobiles, chips and materials.
The Advent offer value the group’s stock at approximately £3.8 billion and gives it a corporate value of £4.4 billion, including debt. The group’s shares surged 15% in trading Monday morning. Advent’s managing partner Shonnel Malani said the deal marked “a vote of confidence in Advent’s UK engineering and innovation.”
The deal follows other recent take-private deals from the UK company, including Doordash’s Deliraloo’s £2.9 billion Swoop, EQT’s acquisition of Keywords Studios, and Thoma Bravo’s Darktrace.
A gust of acquisitions is coming as the UK is fighting a steady stream of large public companies shifting its main list from London to New York and the slower markets in the early public markets.
Spectris said earlier this month it rejected a “preliminary proposal” from private equity group KKR in support of its ongoing debate with Advent.
KKR said on Monday that he was “constructively involved” with Spectris, adding that although he had not made any new offers, it is a sophisticated stage of due diligence and may still do so.
The private equity group was also lost by primary health properties on Monday in a bid war to win NHS landlord Astera. The London-listed real estate group said it had previously recommended a “best final” deal from KKR and US infrastructure investor Stonepeak, which is why it is recommending a sweet offer from valuing it at around £1.799 billion from PHP.
The KKR-led consortium agreed to a £1.7 billion deal for the real estate business at the beginning of June. This is only a plan that will hit opposition from the largest shareholders of the FTSE 250 Group, some of which have expressed concern about landlords being taken at low prices from the London Stock Exchange.
