Vin Murria tables sweetened £254m offer for M&C Saatchi

Tech entrepreneur Vin Murria has made a fourth, sweetened offer for advertising group M&C Saatchi valuing the company at £254million.

Murria – the firm’s deputy chair and largest investor who made her first offer in January via her investment vehicle Advanced AdvT – urged M&C Saatchi shareholders to back the bid. 

Under the improved deal, the advertising firm’s shareholders have the choice of a cash and share offer, which would see them receive 2,043 new AdvT shares and 40p in cash, or an all-share option which would see them receive 2,530 AdvT shares. 

AdvT said both offers valued M&C Saatchi at £253.6million, based on the AdvT’s closing share price of 82p yesterday.

That is 207.50p per M&C share, which is a 27 per cent premium to the company’s closing price of 163p on Monday. 

M&C Saatchi shares jumped nearly 10 per cent to 179p in early trading on Tuesday. 

Murria said: ‘Having sought the recommendation of the M&C Saatchi Independent Directors since early January, to date that has not been forthcoming. 

‘With today’s announcement we are seeking the support of M&C Saatchi shareholders in addition to those shareholders holding 20.2 per cent of the M&C shares who have already indicated their support.’

AdvT is 13 per cent-owned by Murria and is also backed by private equity group Marwyn. AdvT itself owns 9.8 per cent of M&C Saatchi.

Together, AdvT and Murria own 22.3 per cent of M&C Saatchi. 

AdvT’s initial offer valued M&C Saatchi at around £220million, but that, as well as two further bids in the latter half of January, were rejected by the company’s board. 

Her bid comes as the ‘put up or shut up’ deadline arrived today, having been extended four times already.

But the tech entrepreneur faces an uphill battle after the ad group put out sparkling results that showed it swung back into profit after revenues jumped by a fifth.