British car dealer group Lookers has fended off a hostile takeover by its much bigger rival Pendragon.
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The Daily Telegraph reported that Pendragon’s £259m takeover bid for its rival lapsed on Thursday after winning acceptances from just 21% of Lookers’ shareholders.
The paper said investors in Lookers, Britain’s seventh biggest car dealer, had until 13:00BST on Thursday to decide whether to accept Pendragon’s offer of 1.15 of its shares for every Lookers share.
The turning point was when General Electric, one of Lookers’ biggest shareholders, sold its 24.4% stake to Tony Bramall for 635p a share or GBP55.7m on Tuesday, according to the Telegraph.
Shortly after the sale, according to the report, Bramall said: “I will not be accepting the existing Pendragon offer in relation to the above holding.”
That prompted other shareholders to balk at the risk of accepting the offer, the paper added.
The Daily Telegraph noted that the offer came after Pendragon had proposed taking control of both Lookers and Britain’s second-largest car dealer, Reg Vardy, in a three-way deal but succeeded only in buying Reg Vardy for GBP506m eight weeks ago.
Pendragon takes control of Vardy
