Shares in Forth Ports have sunk by more than 10% after a proposed £640m bid for Britain's only listed docks company fell through.
Forth - whose ports include Grangemouth, Rosyth and Tilbury - had been stalked by the Northstream consortium since January but has consistantly rejected the overtures and has not opened its books to the bidders. The consortium is made up of infrastructure investors Arcus, Peel Ports and a Deutsche Bank division and owns 27.4% of its target and had raised its proposal three times to reach £14 in cash.
But after the market closed last night the consortium said it would not make a firm offer. It said it could not justify increasing its offer price, in the light of the current economic uncertainties, and the difficulty of valuing Forth's properties from publicly available information. In other words, without poring over the books.
The consortium has therefore, broken up, although the individual members said they reserved the right to buy more shares in Forth on their own, or participate in any new offer provided it met takeover panel rules.
The news has sent Forth's shares down 135p to £11.40.
