Nat Exp will launch rights issue today
NATIONAL Express will today launch a discounted rights issue to raise about £370m after it rejected a series of takeover approaches, City PM can confirm.
The debt-laden transport group will pitch the cash-call at a discount of around 40 per cent to the theoretical ex-rights price.
Shares closed down 3.1p at 338p last night, valuing the group at £517m.
Spain’s Cosmen family, the company’s biggest shareholder with 18.5 per cent of the stock, said two weeks ago that they had “serious concerns about the absence of a well-defined strategy to address the company’s broader and longer-term issues”.
This came after National Express rejected a £1.6bn all-share merger approach from Stagecoach which followed an earlier 500p-a-share bid from the Cosmen family and private equity firm CVC.
Rival FirstGroup pulled out of a takeover approach in July.