48 1GM Thursday December 3 2020 | the times
Business
Allied Universal, the American secur-
ity company, has a week to make an
offer for G4S after Gardaworld, its
smaller Canadian rival, raised its
takeover bid for the British company to
£4.45 billion.
Gardaworld, a £2 billion turnover
Gardaworld seeks to deliver
knockout blow in G4S fight
Robert Lea Industrial Editor business backed by BC Partners, the
British private equity firm, has been
stalking G4S, a £7 billion turnover
company, since mid-summer. It broke
cover in September with a 190p-a-
share, near-£3 billion hostile offer.
After weeks of sniping between the
two sides about their respective capa-
bilities and motives, Gardaworld has
come back with a final offer, which it
has told G4S shareholders they must
accept by December 16. The offer
values shares in G4S at 235p and the
company at £3.68 billion.
Gardaworld said that it had come to
an agreement with the trustees of G4S’s
pensions schemes for a £770 million
injection to shore up retirement fundliabilities of £2.7 billion that at present
have an accounting deficit of £276 mil-
lion.
However, the stock market appears
to believe that is not the end-game, as
G4S shares rose by 7.4 per cent, or 17p,
to a two-year peak of 246p and a rise of
more than 20 per cent in a month. That
indicates an expectation that AlliedUniversal, with turnover of £6 billion,
will come back with a proposal of its
own. According to City bidding rules,
it has until next Wednesday,
December 9, to make a formal offer.
While the market expects a counter-
offer by Allied Universal, the next move
could yet be a signal from the board of
G4S that they are minded to
recommend the Gardaworld offer. The
latest offer values G4S shares at 60 per
cent more than where they were trad-
ing before Gardaworld made its formal
offer. G4S made no comment on the re-
vised bid other than to tell shareholders
to take “absolutely no action”.
Gardaworld says it will accept victory
if investors speaking for 50 per cent of
the shares plus one share, support it.
“Shareholders have a simple choice:
remain invested in a company which
has consistently failed them and the
wider community for so many years, or
realise their investment in cash, at a sig-
nificant and highly attractive prem-
ium,” Stéphan Crétier, Gardaworld’s
founder and chief executive, said.The $27 billion takeover of Refinitiv, the
financial data group, by the London
Stock Exchange Group is set to receive
approval from competition authorities
in Brussels.
A decision by the European Commis-
sion has been one of the main obstacles
to the deal that was set out by the
exchange in August last year.
There were concerns in Brussels that
the takeover would hand the FTSE 100
company too dominant a position in
some areas. It has taken steps to over-
come these, including striking a deal in
October to sell its Italian business,
which includes the Milan exchange, to
Euronext for €4.3 billion.
The commission has set itself a dead-
line of January 21 to make a decision on
the Refinitiv takeover and reports yes-
terday suggested that it was set to grantBrussels to
Ben Martin Senior City CorrespondentTui invites
investors to
get on board
E
urope’s biggest travel group
is to tap its shareholders
for €500 million as part of
an additional package of
€1.8 billion to shore up its
battered finances (Dominic Walsh
writes).
Tui Group is also raising
€600 million from the German
government’s economic support
fund via a “silent participation”, ofBehind the story
S
candals of the past have
loomed long and large
over G4S, including the
defrauding of the
taxpayer over invoices to
electronically tag offenders who
did not exist and its failure to
recruit enough security guards
to protect the London 2012
Olympic Games (Robert Lea
writes). It is these and other
management failings at the
world’s largest security company
that Ashley Almanza, 57, chief
executive of the past seven years,
has been trying hard to turn
round.
Three summers ago, it
appeared that he had won the
war, reporting growth in the
mature markets of the United
States and Europe, taking the
stock to an all-time high of 337p.
But then came the drip-drip of
bad news in emerging markets,
the engine of its future growth:
the withdrawal of banknotes in
India, the falling oil price
affecting investment in the
Middle East and G4S vans in
Africa being robbed of cash.
G4S stock fell and did not look
back, plumbing a low of 69p this
year as investors scared off by the
pandemic deserted.
That seems strange, as lost
work guarding airports and big
sporting and music events had
been offset by higher-margin,
Covid-19-related work supporting
the financial services,
pharmaceuticals and retail
industries.
Now shareholders will look at
the 235p in cash on offer and be
asking themselves only one
question: could Mr Almanza do
better if the bid is rejected?Tui has 18 cruise
ships and 150 aircraft
and operates more
than 1,300 travel
agencies