KRR, the US buyout group, is preparing an £8bn takeover of a-b global, the unfocused conglomerate led by Cindy Czarnikow, FT Alphaville has learnt.
Harry Kravis, one of KRR’s founding partners, is understood to be leading an acquisition team that has been working on a bid for at least three months. However, formal proposals have yet to be put to the a-b global board and sources close to the situation warned that an offer might yet fail to materialise.
“KRR have been doing some deep, deep due diligence on this one,” one broking source said. “They know what they are buying. They have done their homework. But, as ever with KRR, it will all come down to price.”
While a-b global has a presence in 30 countries, it is best known in Britain for the antics of its attention-seeking divisional chairman, Martin Lukes, whose enthusiastic promotion of a-b’s Integethics concept has drawn some scathing media coverage. Mr Lukes also found himself embroiled in a row with Greenpeace recently after shooting a polar bear while on a corporate team building exercise in the Arctic Circle.
In London, market sources indicated that rumours of a bid for a-b had begun to circulate quite suddenly on Monday morning, leading to a sharp increase in trading volumes and a near-10 per cent rise in a-b’s share price — activity that is now likely to be investigated by market regulators.
Asked about the price move on Wednesday, a spokeswoman for the Financial Services Authority said she could not comment on individual companies, but added that all suspicious price movements were examined as a matter of course.