Marlowe ditches its ‘unsolicited’ takeover bid of Restore
Business services company Marlowe has today announced that it has withdrawn its takeover bid for fellow data services firm Restore after the companies could not come to an agreement.
The board of Marlowe said it still believed that the deal would have been “strategically compelling,” but that the “offer price that would be required to secure a recommendation from the Restore Board,” was not be in the best interests of shareholders.
The news comes just a month after Restore sent its own shares flying after rejecting a £743m ‘unsolicited’ bid from Marlowe.
Restore said at the time that it was the second “unsolicited, highly conditional, non-binding” offer in just a few weeks.
Marlowe said it will report on other planned M&A activity in the coming weeks and that its strong balance sheet would allow it to plough ahead with other deals.
The firm has already undergone a flurry of M&A activity in the last year, having spent £182m on 22 acquisitions.
Marlowe dished out £18m just last month for risk management platform Core Stream and £17.2m for healthcare firm Healthwork in June.
Following the announcement, Marlowe saw its shares rise by 6.6 per cent at the open while Restore’s shares dipped by 3.8 per cent.