British airports operator BAA Plc rejected an £8.75 billion (US$15.35 billion) conditional cash offer from Spanish infrastructure company Grupo Ferrovial SA on Friday.
BAA, which operates seven airports across the UK, including Heathrow, Gatwick and Stansted in London, said that the £8.10 per share proposed offer did not reflect the true value of its assets.
"On the basis of this proposal, the board does not believe it is in shareholders' interests for it to enter into discussions with Ferrovial," BAA said in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.
Ferrovial said the proposal offered attractive value for BAA shareholders and it was "disappointed that BAA has chosen to reject the proposal without further discussion."
Ferrovial, which made the approach as part of a consortium also comprising Canadian investment fund Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec and Singaporean government fund GIC Special Investments Pte Ltd, said its "strong preference" was to receive a recommendation from BAA, rather than move to a hostile bid.
"Therefore, the consortium would be willing to increase its offer by a small increment in return for BAA agreeing to grant the limited due diligence access ... and recommending the consortium's offer," it said.
The offer is a 25 percent premium to the level that BAA's shares were trading at ahead of Ferrovial's statement on Feb. 8 that it was considering a bid.
BAA's shares closed 1.25 percent lower at £8.285 on the London Stock Exchange, after initially falling further immediately after the announcement.
Analysts said BAA's rejection was unsurprising given reports that others, including Australia's Macquarie Bank Ltd, are also interested in the airports operator.
Ferrovial, which owns construction company Amey, said that the consortium was "committed to the long-term ownership and continued development of BAA's business."
It said the group would focus on investment in the UK and enhancing airport capacity in southeast England. BAA is already building a fifth terminal with British Airways Plc at Heathrow Airport and a second runway at Stansted to cope with extra demand.
Ferrovial said Friday it has been advised that any formal bid would not be met with any material regulatory hurdles.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained