UK Public M and A Update Q3 2021
12 October 2021
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18 firm offers were announced in Q3 2021 (compared to 14 in Q2 2021 and 13 in Q1 2021), with a combined offer value of approximately £36.9 billion (representing an increase from £10.09 billion in Q2 2021). Of those 18 offers, 14 were all cash and two of the cash offers were announced and lapsed during the same quarter.
In the last quarter, Ashurst's global public M&A mandates included:
A summary of the key features of each announced offer is set out in a table in the Appendix on pages 6-9 of this publication (which can be downloaded below).
Announced bids | 18 |
Recommended on announcement | 16 |
Schemes of arrangement | 14 |
Average of bid premia (% unweighted) | 45.41% |
Average of bid premia (% weighted) | 52.65% |
Q3 was relatively quiet from a regulatory and legal perspective though there are a couple of items worth noting including the publication by the Panel of its Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 31 March 2021 and the conclusion by the Code Committee that it should not make any changes to the existing regime under Rule 2 of the Takeover Code regarding the disclosure of takeover approaches. In addition, a new edition (the thirteenth edition) of the Takeover Code was published on 5 July 2021 reflecting amendments made by Instruments 2021/1 and 2021/2 (as noted in our Q2 2021 Update). Instruments 2021/3 (amending to reflect the renaming of the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators as The Chartered Governance Institute UK & Ireland), 2021/4 (reducing the fees and charges which are payable in accordance with section 13 of the Introduction to the Code by approximately 25%) and 2021/5 (amending Section 8 of the Introduction to the Code to reflect the fact that the Chair and Deputy Chairs of the Takeover Appeal Board are appointed by the Master of Rolls) each took effect on 2 August 2021.
Further details of these developments are set out in the News digest on page 2 of this publication (which can be downloaded below).
The information provided is not intended to be a comprehensive review of all developments in the law and practice, or to cover all aspects of those referred to.
Readers should take legal advice before applying it to specific issues or transactions.
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