Daisy's (DAY) shares rose 10 per cent to 188p after the corporate IT and telecoms provider was approached earlier this month with a possible 190p a share offer. The bid comes from a consortium comprising chief executive Matthew Riley, Toscafund Asset Management and private equity specialist Penta Capital: together, they own 51.5 per cent of Daisy.
The news of an indicative bid isn’t a complete surprise as Daisy was reportedly in talks with Vodafone and Liberty Global earlier this year. Moreover, broker Liberum has in the past highlighted Daisy’s “high synergies” to potential network-owning bidders. That reflects the group's strong presence in the small and mid-sized enterprise market, but also the value of its independent network.
Daisy’s rising debt pile and falling fixed-line revenues have also left it looking vulnerable to a takeover. Sales were essentially flat last year and the group's operating loss widened to about £18m, despite it spending £35m on four acquisitions - these deals added data centres and such services as IT support to its offering. In fact, Liberum expects adjusted earnings for the year to end-March 2015 - at 13.6p a share - to be little changed from 2014's 13.5p.
