STOCKS TO WATCH: Cats holding out for the cream over sale of Telit
Oozi Cats isn’t rolling over easily. Two weeks ago the controversial former chief executive of Telit Communications told The Mail on Sunday he wasn’t happy with Dbay’s £300million, £2.20-a-share takeover offer for the chip designer he founded 20 years ago.
As a result, Dbay, an activist private equity firm, was forced to delay a shareholder vote to approve the deal and then had to increase its bid to £2.29½p a share.
City slicker: Oozi Cats could have made more than £40million from his 12 per cent stake if he had accepted Dbay’s offer
The new Telit shareholder meeting to approve taking the company private is scheduled for next week. But Cats, who could have made more than £40million from his 12 per cent stake if he had accepted Dbay’s offer, remains resolute.
He says: ‘This is still a half-price deal. So I plan to vote against Dbay’s new offer at next week’s shareholder meeting.
‘I urge other Telit shareholders to do the same.’
This cat is clearly holding out for the cream.
Grow wants to capitalise on cannabis
A British start-up is looking to capitalise on the accelerating ‘green rush’ into cannabis investment.
Grow was founded by former JP Morgan banker Ben Langley in 2017 and has become an established importer of medicinal cannabis.
The biopharma firm has already raised £9.5million to expand its operations through several fundraising rounds, and is now seeking £3.2million via crowdfunding platform Seedrs.
Langley hopes to expand in the UK – where Grow reckons it has captured about 20 per cent of the burgeoning market – as well as on the Continent, and says it will invest in further research.
Sources say plans are already afoot for a stock market flotation in the first half of next year.
First results for musicMagpie
MusicMagpie issues its debut results as a public company this week.
The half-year figures are expected to show respectable turnover and profit growth, and progress in its nascent rental subscriptions arm.
The firm specialises in reselling gadgets and erected a striking sculpture of G7 leaders’ heads in Cornwall made from discarded electronics in a warning over waste.
The stock remains below the float price, so more than quirky marketing may be needed to convince investors.
Annual dash for results
The annual dash to post corporate results before the August holidays takes place next week with an avalanche of figures for investors to digest.
NatWest, Lloyds and Barclays are among those posting interim results. The latter could prove the most interesting after the recent rush of deal-making and flotations.
Barclays’ bankers have been on the ticket for several deals and they advised on this week’s much-anticipated flotation of trading app Robinhood.
Analysts are pencilling in first half profits of £4billion, against £1.3billion a year before, so an interim payout of 1.8p a share and 5.7p for the year are expected.