Balfour Beatty rejects Carillion offer and critiques value calculations
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As expected, construction group Balfour Beatty rejected a merger offer from rival Carillion as not in its shareholders' best interests, noting that Tuesday's third offer was only a "small value change" from the preceding bid.
The Balfour board again questioned the "considerable risks" around plans to significantly reduce the scale of the UK construction business "when it is poised to benefit from a recovery in the market", and again dug in its heels about its intention to sell its US-based Parsons Brinckerhoff subsidiary.
It also critiqued Carillion's £2.09bn valuation of Balfour Beatty in a proposed merger, saying the offer only added £55m to the previously rejected proposal.
The board pointed out that the combined market capitalisations of the two businesses, minus a proposed dividend of 8.5p per Balfour share, would give a valuation of £3.1bn. Balfour's 58.268% share of the merged business would only therefore be valued at £1.8bn, or 262p per share.
-- More to follow --
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