Waterstones-owner Elliott plots £700m takeover bid for prime road big Currys

Elliott Advisors, the proprietor of Waterstones, is plotting a £700m takeover of Currys, the London-listed electrical items retailer.

Sky News has learnt that Elliott, best-known for its activist sieges in opposition to the boards of among the world’s largest firms, is engaged on a bid for one among Britain’s best-known excessive road names.

This weekend, it was unclear whether or not Elliott had made a proper proposal to the board of Currys, though a standard takeover premium of about 30% on the corporate’s present share worth would worth it at about £700m.

Currys employs greater than 15,000 individuals within the UK, buying and selling from about 300 shops.

In 2021, the corporate rebranded below its present title, having absorbed retailers working below manufacturers together with PC World, Dixons and Carphone Warehouse.

It was based in 1884 by Henry Curry as a bicycle-building enterprise earlier than diversifying into the sale of toys, gramophones and radios when it listed on the London inventory market in 1927.

Now led by chief government Alex Baldock, Currys has been grappling with the identical inflationary headwinds which have the remainder of the retail sector and wider client economic system.

Last month, it reported a dip in like-for-like gross sales through the essential Christmas buying and selling interval however was in a position to announce a modest improve to revenue forecasts on account of cost-cutting measures.

The firm trades in eight international locations, together with Denmark, Finland and Sweden below the Elkjop model.

In whole, it employs 28,000 individuals and operates greater than 800 shops.

A piece of those are in Greece, the place it has introduced a £175m sale of its operations to the nation’s Public Power Corporation.

Shares in Currys closed on Friday at 47.08p, giving it a market capitalisation of about £525m.

The inventory has fallen by greater than a 3rd within the final 12 months.

A proper bid from Elliott would make {the electrical} retailer one of the outstanding London-quoted firms to face being delisted within the final yr, amid a slew of so-called public-to-privates.

Elliott’s portfolio consists of Waterstones, which is run by the outstanding books retailer James Daunt.

Last yr, it examined gives for Reiss, the style retailer, and The Body Shop, which was as an alternative taken over by the monetary investor Aurelius and is now within the arms of directors within the UK.

In Britain, it has recruited the City grandee Sir Mike Rake as a senior adviser in an effort to forge extra conciliatory ties with the boards of firms it invests in.

In latest years, it has constructed stakes in FTSE-350 firms together with BHP, the mining big, medicine big GlaxoSmithKline, Hammerson, the buying centre-owner, and Whitbread, the proprietor of Premier Inn accommodations.

At most of them, it has both pushed publicly or behind the scenes for strategic or administration adjustments, and has earned a repute as one of the aggressive activist funds on the planet.

Elliott Management, the US-based father or mother, was based within the Nineteen Seventies by Paul Singer with simply over $1m below administration.

It now manages over $55bn, and its London workplace is run by Mr Singer’s son, Gordon.

For a number of years, it was the controlling shareholder of AC Milan, hanging a deal to promote the Italian Serie A membership in 2022.

It retained a minority stake as a part of the settlement with RedBird Capital Partners.

Currys declined to remark, whereas Elliott has been contacted for remark.