US private equity firm Lone Star on Monday increased its offer to buy McCarthy & Stone, in a move that values the retirement housebuilding group at £647 million.
The 120p per share offer for the company, which specialises in land buying, developing, selling and managing retirement communities, is higher than the 115p per share bid tabled in October.
The latest offer represents a 44.6% premium to the closing price per McCarthy & Stone share of 83p pence on October 22, the last business day before the commencement of the offer period.
It is also a 64.1% premium to the average share price for the three months to October 22.
The proposal is still below the pre-pandemic price, 158p in February, and the Sunday Times in October reported that one investor said the bid is “opportunistic”.
But McCarthy & Stone directors “consider the terms of the final offer to be fair and reasonable”, the takeover target said today.
Directors at the retirement housebuilder have recommended shareholders vote in favour of the deal. The meeting starts at 4.15 pm today.
When the planned swoop was first announced in October, Donald Quintin, president of Lone Star Europe, said McCarthy is in a “market underpinned by clear fundamentals: a rapidly ageing population and a structural undersupply of suitable housing options for older people”.
Rothschild, Deutsche and Peel Hunt are working with McCarthy and Moelis & Company and Goldman Sachs are advising the suitor.
