Car dealership Pendragon receives £400m takeover proposal
Car dealership group Pendragon has received a £400 million takeover offer from its largest shareholder.
Hedin Mobility has bid 29p a share in cash for the group, which includes the Stratstone and Evans Halshaw brands.
If successful, the deal would restore Pendragon’s longtime former chief executive Trevor Finn, who is a non-executive director at Hedin, to the car dealer group that he led for more than 20 years. Pendragon said there was no certainty of a final offer.
Its shares rose nearly 24 per cent in early Monday trading in London, overturning a decline for the year. The shares have risen 21 per cent this year.
Hedin, which operates showrooms in Sweden, Switzerland, Norway and Belgium, owns about a quarter of Pendragon’s shares. It has until October 24 to decide whether to go ahead with its offer.
Pendragon, which makes about 90 per cent of its sales from car sales, benefited from supply chain disruptions and a computer chip shortage that hit global vehicle production and limited the stock available.
Pendragon includes Evans Halshaw sites in Stourbridge, Walsall and Wolverhampton; a Stratstone site in Wolverhampton and a CarStore in Shrewsbury.
