The consortium of Kinetic TCo and Globalvia Inversiones has increased its bid for bus and trains operator Go-Ahead (LON: GOG). This bid is being recommended by the Go-Ahead board.
The consortium originally offered 1450p a share in cash and a special dividend of 50p a share instead of a final dividend for the year to 2 July 2022. The lat4est offer is still 1450p a share, but the special dividend has been increased to 100p a share, making the value of the bid 1550p a share.
The board, which previously recommended the original offer, and institutional investors backing the bid hold 27% of the Newcastle-based transport company shares. It appears that some institutions were not as happy with the original bid as the board and pushed for a higher offer.
A general meeting to approve the takeover on 8 August has been adjourned and moved to 16 August. The vote requires 75% shareholder approval.
The consortium originally offered 975p a share back in January, so this is significantly more than it wanted to pay. The other potential bidder ASX-listed Kelsian (ASX: KLS) decided not to make an offer.
The share price has been much higher than the offer price, but not since early 2020. The all time high back in 2007 was nearly double the bid level.
Kinetic is the largest bus operator in Australia and New Zealand. Globalvia manages transport infrastructure concessions, including highways and railways. It already operates in Spain, the US, Ireland, Portugal, Costa Rica and Chile. Go-Ahead has bus operations in the UK, Singapore, Ireland and Sweden, plus rail franchises in the UK, Germany and Norway.
