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 corporations, is engaged on a bid for considered one of 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 value 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 underneath its present identify, having absorbed outlets working underneath 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 govt Alex Baldock, Currys has been grappling with the identical inflationary headwinds which have stricken the remainder of the retail sector and wider client economic system.

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

The firm trades in eight nations, together with Denmark, Finland and Sweden underneath 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 vital outstanding London-quoted corporations 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 provides 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 fingers 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 corporations it invests in.

In current years, it has constructed stakes in FTSE-350 corporations together with BHP, the mining big, medication 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 popularity as one of the vital aggressive activist funds on this planet.

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