Yes, we are s still awaiting a recommendation from “independent” directors, but on Tuesday Lord Harris of Peckham finally came up with a price at which he is proposing to take his Carpetright floor coverings business private.
Some £12.50 is on the table, valuing Carpetright at £850m. That’s a premium of 12.8 per cent over Monday’s close and a 22 per cent advance on where the shares stood before confirmation of Lord Harris’ plan in mid-June, but it’s rather short of the £13.40 at which the shares stood immediately after June’s news.
In a piece of ironic officiousness, the independent directors have now “agreed to grant the potential offeror access to the company to perform due diligence.” That gives Harris at chance to look at the books of a company that he grew from a chain of three shops, inherited at the age of 15, into Europe’s biggest carpeting retailer and where he is currently chairman, chief executive and controlling shareholder.
Unsurprisingly, Harris, the senior management team and various trusts say they will accept a share alternative for their combined 31.6 per cent stake. Crescent Holding, the Saudi investor with 14.9 per cent, will be taking the cash.
Baroness Noakes, formerly of KPMG, is leading the independents who have now spent four months waiting for Harris to firm up his offer. A further announcement is promised, but in the meantime Carpetright issued a trading statement showing that in the first half like-for-like sales declined 0.8 per cent in the UK, but jumped 8.1 per cent in the rest of Europe. Back in April the company had warned of declining sales.