NATIONAL Express has fired a new salvo in the ongoing takeover battle for Stagecoach, declaring this morning that its offer represents a “superior value creation opportunity” to the proposal tabled by DWS Infrastructure.
The bus giant has broken its silence after its propsoal for a £1.9 billion all-share merger with Stagecoach was cast aside last week in favour of cash bid from the German infrastructure investor, which valued the Scottish transport company at nearly £600 million, or 105p per share.
National Express declared this morning that it believes the offer from DWS “materially undervalues” Stagecoach, claiming that its proposal has the potential to unlock an “illustrative look-through value of 170p per Stagecoach share.”
But it did not raise its offer.
National Express reiterated that its offer would deliver annual cost savings of at least £45m, and would not result in job losses in frontline operational roles or depot closures, though it has previously conceded that there may be some redundancies as a result of duplication in some head office, corporate and senior management functions.
National Express noted that its proposal would see the merged company become a leading multi-modal transport provider in the UK, build scale and relevance in an increasingly “bus-friendly” UK market, expand across large urban areas and implement leading environmental and sustainability solutions.
Shares in Stagecoach edged up slightly following the intervention, and were trading at around 106.03p at around 10.30am, up 1.5p. National Express shares were trading up 3p at 235.2p at the same time.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here