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The business section on page 20 of the Daily Telegraph yesterday, Monday 25 August, had a report on the comments of the chief executive of On The Beach [OTB]. This might boost OTB's share price when the market opens later this morning, Tuesday, after the bank holiday weekend. I've quoted most of the report later in this comment.

Do people on here think that there's a read-across from what OTB's chief executive has said which might suggest that Jet2's current trading is strong? If so, can we expect the Jet2 share price to get a boost today or in the next few days?

The report's headline is "Med holidays at a high despite lean times" and this is most of what it says:

"Cash-strapped Britons are putting costly purchases on hold to ensure they can still fund their summer break to the Med, a leading holiday operator has said. Shaun Morton, chief executive of [OTB], said the firm's summer bookings had climbed to record levels as low and middle-income earners use credit cards and cheaper airports instead of forgoing their summer break entirely.

" 'We know people are spending less on big ticket items such as cars, but that's not true of holidays,' he said. 'Whilst it's a big spend, it's not something that you can put off, like a new kitchen. If you want a holiday and don't do it this year, you don't have one'.

"[OTB] is Brtiatin's second-biggest online travel agent. Destinations such as Tunisia and Turkey, where accomodation costs less and the pound goes further, have seen a surge in demand, while a trend towards all-in package deals has continued unabated.

"A typical break with [OTB] costs about £700 per person, which if booked a year in advance with staggered payments 'can cost less than a gym membership' he said. Spending on holidays has risen almost every month for three years following a rebound since Covid despite a sluggish economy ... 'people are willing to forgo other items to fund their summer getaway' [Mr Morton] added.

... [He also said] 'More people are also opting for packages, where everything is paid for, flexible payment plans and credit cards rather than debit cards.'

"[OTB], which offers 70m seats from the UK, ranks as Britain's fifth biggest travel agent overall behind Jet2, easyJet, tour operator TUI and online rival Loveholidays."

In a moment I'll add a comment almost identical to this one to London & Soouth East's chat page for OTB.

Due to London & South East's limit on the amount of text in a comment, I was unable to include the following in my comment on Friday 22 August:

- On Friday 22 August UTG's bid target [ESP] opened below 92p, by 9am the spread was 92.3 to 92.4 and for most of the day it traded in a narrow range. From about 9:50 am to 3 pm from the spread was 92.7 to 92.8, the quantity bought was more than double the quantity sold.

- From about 3 pm the spread went progressivley higher through the gears via 92.8 to 93.0 to peak at 4:14 pm at 93.6 to 93.8. By then there were more sales in the mix but by the close, and ignoring the uncrossing trade and the trades which followed it, the number bought was still about double the number of shares sold.

- On Friday there were many individual purchase trades involving batches of 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 and 6,000 shares.

- Until Friday I hadn't seen such a trading pattern on any day since I bought ESP on 13 August.

- As I said in my 22 August comment, from about 3pm on Friday UTG, whose shares are oversold, began a fairly steep rise and closed up nicely but ESP were up even when UTG were down.

- My experience with other cash-and-shares bid situations in the last year or so (e.g. Aviva for Direct Line, and Greencore for Bakkavor) is that at this stage in the takeover process the target is usually sits at a discount of about 5% to the value implied by the bidder's share price, but for much of Friday ESP's mid-price at any given time was 98 to 99% of the value implied by UTG's share price at that time.

- Friday's closing price of 735.5 for UTG implies a value of 94.5175 for ESP. However, ESP closed at 93.7 which is 99.135% of the implied value, i.e. a miniscule discount of 0.865% to the implied value.

- Either UTG is about to get re-rated to reverse its oversold position and traders are buying both UTG and ESP in the hope of profiting from the re-rating, and/or there's another potential bidder sniffing around ESP. Of course if there's another bidder they might be prepared to offer more than UTG is prepared to pay, and if the market thinks that a counter-bidder is likely to succeed there's likely to be a reversal in whole of in part of UTG's share price drop of about 14% since their approach for ESP was annonced on 5 June.

- After being a few hundred pounds down on paper for most of the time since I bought ESP on 13 August, at Friday's close I was under £50 down.

A couple of minutes ago I added a comment almost identical to this one to London & South East's chatboard for ESP.

Due to London & South East's limit on the amount of text in a comment, I was unable to include the following in my comment on Friday 22 August:

- On Friday 22 August ESP opened below 92p, by 9am the spread was 92.3 to 92.4 and for most of the day it traded in a narrow range. From about 9:50 am to 3 pm from the spread was 92.7 to 92.8, the quantity bought was more than double the quantity sold.

- From about 3 pm the spread went progressivley higher through the gears via 92.8 to 93.0 to peak at 4:14 pm at 93.6 to 93.8. By then there were more sales in the mix but by the close, and ignoring the uncrossing trade and the trades which followed it, the number bought was still about double the number of shares sold.

- On Friday there were many individual purchase trades involving batches of 2,000, 3,000, 4,000, 5,000 and 6,000 shares.

- Until Friday I hadn't seen such a trading pattern on any day since I bought ESP on 13 August.

- As I said in my 22 August comment, from about 3pm on Friday the bidder Unite [UTG], whose shares are oversold, began a fairly steep rise and closed up nicely but ESP were up even when UTG were down.

- My experience with other cash-and-shares bid situations in the last year or so (e.g. Aviva for Direct Line, and Greencore for Bakkavor) is that at this stage in the takeover process the target is usually sits at a discount of about 5% to the value implied by the bidder's share price, but for much of Friday ESP's mid-price at any given time was 98 to 99% of the value implied by UTG's share price at that time.

- Friday's closing price of 735.5 for UTG implies a value of 94.5175 for ESP. However, ESP closed at 93.7 which is 99.135% of the implied value, i.e. a miniscule discount of 0.865% to the implied value.

- Either UTG is about to get re-rated to reverse its oversold position and traders are buying both UTG and ESP in the hope of profiting from the re-rating, and/or there's another potential bidder sniffing around ESP. Of course if there's another bidder they might be prepared to offer more than UTG is prepared to pay, and if the market thinks that a counter-bidder is likely to succeed there's likely to be a reversal in whole of in part of UTG's share price drop of about 14% since their approach for ESP was annonced on 5 June.

- After being a few hundred pounds down on paper for most of the time since I bought ESP on 13 August, at Friday's close I was under £50 down.

Within the next couple of minutes I'm going to add a comment almost identical to this one to London & South East's chatboard for UTG.

My comment on Wednesday 13 August below said that I believed that UTG dearly wanted to buy ESP so I bought at just under 93.5p per share which was close to that day's low and nearly ESP's lowest since UTG's approach was announced on 5 June. UTG's formal offer came at 7am on Thursday 14 August as I'd expected, but was seriously underwhelming.

Echoing MattTheBrave's and legsofman's comments on London & South East's ESP chatboard and other people's comments on ADVFN on 14 August:

- UTG shares fell by 14.4% from 855.5p on 4 June, the day before their approach for ESP was announced, to just 732p on 13 August meaning that their formal cash-and-shares offer valued each ESP share at 94.22p which is 11.94% less than ESP's implied value of 106.995p just before UTG's approach was announced.

- My 13th August comment indicated that UTG have headroom to increase their gearing so I expected them to borrow some cash to enable their formal offer to have a higher cash element, thus bring its value back towards 106.995p per ESP share.

- So how on earth, in the context of a 14.4% fall in UTG's share price, could ESP's board agree to recommend UTG's offer with a small increase in cash of 2p per share and a reduction from 0.09 to 0.085 UTG shares per ESP share?

I have the following addiitonal comments / questions:

- ESP shareholders could reject UTG's bid.

- I'm sure that many of the big ESP shareholders (e.g. funds such as Blackrock) are also large UTG shareholders. Does anyone know how the big guys are going to vote?

- At today's closing price, ESP's market capitalisation is about £622 million. We all hoped that the value of UTG's formal offer would be 107p per share, valuing ESP at about £710 million. What is the chance of a counter-offer from a white knight?

- For example, KKR and their collaborator Stonepeak were prepared to pay £1.64 billion in cash for another REIT, Assura, but PHP's final cash-and-shares offer won the shareholder vote. Would KKR be interested in buying ESP for about 107p per share which we we all wanted?

Due to UTG's formal offer being lower than I'd expected, I didn't make the hoped-for quick profit of at least 4% overnight from buying on 13 August to 14 August when the formal offer was announced.

Since the formal bid announcement:

- On Thursday 14 August and (if I remember correctly) also on Friday 15 August I could have sold ESP at a profit of between about £15 and £60. Most of the time I've been down several hundred pounds. I've continued to hold in the hope of a UTG share price recovery (UTG are oversold) or a better counter-bid.

- Today ESP were up almost all day even when UTG were down. From about 3pm both ESP and UTG began a fairly steep rise and closed up nicely. I hope the recovery carries on next week.

- Maybe the market expects a counterbid from a third party.

A few minutes ago I made a comment very similar to this one on London & South East's chatboard for ESP.

MattTheBrave indicated on 15th August below that I've been silent since the bid announcement.

My comment on Wednesday 13 August said that I believed that UTG dearly wanted to buy ESP so I bought at just under 93.5p per share which was close to that day's low and nearly ESP's lowest since UTG's approach was announced on 5 June. UTG's formal offer came at 7am on Thursday 14 August as I'd expected, but was seriously underwhelming.

Echoing MattTheBrave's and legsofman's comments here and other people's comments on ADVFN on 14 August:

- UTG shares fell by 14.4% from 855.5p the day before their approach was announced to just 732p on 13 August meaning that their formal cash-and-shares offer valued each ESP share at 94.22p which is 11.94% less than ESP's implied value of 106.995p at the time of UTG's approach was announced.

- My 13th August comment indicated that I expected UTG to borrow some cash to enable their formal offer to have a higher cash element to bring its value closer to 106.995p per ESP share, because there is headroom to increase their gearing.

- So how on earth, in the context of a 14.4% fall in UTG's share price, could ESP's board agree to recommend UTG's offer with a small increase in cash of 2p per share and a reduction from 0.09 to 0.085 UTG shares per ESP share?

I have the following addiitonal comments / questions:

- ESP shareholders could reject UTG's bid.

- I'm sure that many of the big ESP shareholders (e.g. funds such as Blackrock) are also large UTG shareholders. Does anyone know how the big guys are going to vote?

- At today's closing price, ESP's market capitalisation is about £622 million. We all hoped that the value of UTG's formal offer would be 107p per share, valuing ESP at about £710 million. What is the chance of a counter-offer from a white knight?

- KKR and their collaborator Stonepeak were prepared to pay £1.64 billion in cash for another REIT, Assura, but PHP's final cash-and-shares offer won the shareholder vote. Would KKR be interested in buying ESP for about 107p per share which we we all wanted?

Due to UTG's formal offer being lower than I'd expected, I didn't make the hoped-for quick profit of at least 4% overnight from buying on 13 August to 14 August when the formal offer was announced.

Since the formal bid announcement:

- On Thursday 14 August and (if I remember correctly) Friday 15 August I could sell ESP for a profit of between about £15 and £60. Most of the time I've been down several hundred pounds. I've continued to hold in the hope of a UTG share price recovery (they're UTG oversold) or a better counter-bid.

- Today ESP were up almost all day even when UTG were down. From about 3pm both ESP and UTG began a fairly steep rise and closed up nicely. I hope the recovery carries on next week.

- Maybe the market expects a counterbid from a third party.

I'm going to add a comment almost identical to this one to London & South East's chatbo

Moments ago I added a comment almost identical to this one to London & South East's chatboard for ESP.

My guess is that UTG dearly want to acquire ESP and that they're likely to make a formal offer, so late this afternoon I bought some ESP at just under 93.5p per share which is close to today's low. The price which I paid is also near the lowest ESP have been since UTG's approach was announced.

The fall in ESP's share price since it closed at 104.8 on 10 June reflects the drop in the UTG share price since their approach to take over ESP was announced on 5 June. UTG has fallen to successive 5 year lows since 5 June.

I think that UTG have to increase the cash element to bring the value of their proposed offer to nearer 106.995p per ESP share which it was when the initial announcement was made on 5 June. I suspect that they'd have to do this by increasing their gearing which if I remember correctly isn't particularly high at the moment.

Unless UTG's put-up-or-shut-up deadline is extended for a third time, there's the possibility of a bid announcement being made any time before 5 pm tomorrow. Coincidentally, ESP are expected to announce their results for the half-year to 30 June 2025 at 7 am tomorrow. It's possible that the agreed terms for a takeover bid might be announced at the same time.

Obviously there's a risk of UTG announcing that they won't be making a formal bid. In that case, in the short term ESP might fall quickly by 6% to 8% to something like 88 or even 86p. It's also possible that negotiations between UTG and ESP are still continuing. In that case there's likely to be an announcement of a third extension of the PUSU deadline to allow more time to complete due diligence and/or to finalise offer documentation and/or for UTG to sort out arrangements for financing any bid.

If a formal offer for ESP is announced tomorrow, I expect ESP shares to go up by about 4% to 8%. That would be a good overnight profit for me and anyone else who bought in the last fortnight.

REMINDER:

- The announcement on 5 June said that UTG's proposal was 30p cash and 0.09 new UTG shares per ESP share, and that at UTG's closing price of 855.5p on 4 June 2025, this valued each ESP share at 106.995p.

- On 5 June:

UTG closed at 837.0p. At this price their offer valued each ESP share at 105.33p.

ESP closed at 103.2p.

TODAY:

UTG closed at up 1 at 732.0. At this price their offer values each ESP share at 95.88p.

ESP closed down 0.5 at 93.6.

In a few moments I'm going to add a comment almost identical to this one to London & South East's chatboard for UTG.

My guess is that UTG dearly want to acquire ESP and that they're likely to make a formal offer, so late this afternoon I bought some ESP at just under 93.5p per share which is close to today's low. The price which I paid is also near the lowest ESP have been since UTG's approach was announced.

The fall in ESP's share price since it closed at 104.8 on 10 June reflects the drop in the UTG share price since their approach to take over ESP was announced on 5 June. UTG has fallen to successive 5 year lows since 5 June.

I think that UTG have to increase the cash element to bring the value of their proposed offer to nearer 106.995p per ESP share which it was when the initial announcement was made on 5 June. I suspect that they'd have to do this by increasing their gearing which if I remember correctly isn't particularly high at the moment.

Unless UTG's put-up-or-shut-up deadline is extended for a third time, there's the possibility of a bid announcement being made any time before 5 pm tomorrow. Coincidentally, ESP are expected to announce their results for the half-year to 30 June 2025 at 7 am tomorrow. It's possible that the agreed terms for a takeover bid might be announced at the same time.

Obviously there's a risk of UTG announcing that they won't be making a formal bid. In that case, in the short term ESP might fall quickly by 6% to 8% to something like 88 or even 86p. It's also possible that negotiations between UTG and ESP are still continuing. In that case there's likely to be an announcement of a third extension of the PUSU deadline to allow more time to complete due diligence and/or to finalise offer documentation and/or for UTG to sort out arrangements for financing any bid.

If a formal offer for ESP is announced tomorrow, I expect ESP shares to go up by about 4% to 8%. That would be a good overnight profit for me and anyone else who bought in the last fortnight.

REMINDER:

- The announcement on 5 June said that UTG's proposal was 30p cash and 0.09 new UTG shares per ESP share, and that at UTG's closing price of 855.5p on 4 June 2025, this valued each ESP share at 106.995p.

- On 5 June:

UTG closed at 837.0p. At this price their offer valued each ESP share at 105.33p.

ESP closed at 103.2p.

TODAY:

UTG closed at up 1 at 732.0. At this price their offer values each ESP share at 95.88p.

ESP closed down 0.5 at 93.6.

Bullish AML -

I agree entirely with your analysis in your 9th August comment, except the bit where you say "there is no reason for this not to continue only gain more traction.. everything is positive".

However there is a potential downside:

- In his statement accompanying the 2024-2025 preliminary full-year results announcement on 27 June 2025 Nat Rothschild (Volex's Executive Chairman) said "We remain firmly on track to deliver our five-year strategic plan ... underpinned by ... an active acquisition pipeline that is closely aligned with our strategic priorities and financial returns criteria" so we can expect acquisitions of other businesses.

- If VLX announce a proposal to take over another business to which the market takes fright because it involves a significant increase in indebtedness and/or dilution of existing shareholders, the share price might dive.

- Don't forget that it did dive on 15 November 2024 when VLX's excellent half-year figures were accompanied by the announcement of their cash-and-shares approach to take over TT Electronics. My comment on 31 July, below, reminded people on this chatboard of this.

Having said that, 2024-2025 full-year sales were more than $1 billion for the first time and 2024-2025 profit was more than $100 million for the first time, and increasing sales and profits should generate increasing positive cash flow and with it capacity for paying the additional interest if more debt is taken on. Indeed, the 2024-2025 preliminary results anouncement said "The Group's covenant net debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio remained healthy at 1.0 times ... providing substantial headroom and financial flexibility."

When checking closing prices of various shares late on Friday 8 August, I saw that AMS closed at 212p (up 11p or 5.46%) and had been as high as 221p (up 20p or 9.95%) at 4:17pm when there were 4 purchases at that price. These purchases involved respectively 473, 312, 700 and 327 shares.

Friday afternoon's excitement seems to have been as a result of a report published by Betaville at 4:04pm on Friday which reminded their readers that:

- Betaville had in March 2025 dislcosed Montagu's interest in potentially making a takeover offer for AMS; and

- a few weeks later Montagu announced that they were walking away so they cannot "return with a takeover offer for another six months."

The key point in Friday's Betaville report is that one of their "loyal" readers had pointed out that an item had appeared on the news page of Montagu's website which hadn't been there the previous week (i.e. the week ending Friday 1 August 2025). Montagu's website's news page is at https://montagu.com/news/

The Montagu news report which Betaville's "loyal reader" was referring to is dated 25 April 2025. Its date suggests that it has in fact been on Montagu's website for about three and-a-half months rather than having been posted there only in the last week or so. Anyway, if you open it you'll see that it's an almost word-for-word repeat of Montagu's RNS announcement under Rule 2.8 of the Takeover Code at 3:05 pm on 24 April 2025, a couple of hours before their put-up-or-shut-up deadline expired, saying that they didn't intend to make an offer for AMS.

Unless one of the Rule 2.8 exceptions applies (e.g. a third party makes a takeover offer for AMS), Montagu can't make another approach for AMS for 6 months so they're frozen out until 24 October 2025.

Whilst Friday afternoon's Betaville report generated some "noise" which might attract people to buy AMS shares, in reality it's a "non-story" and isn't news at all. Accordingly, the AMS share price is likely to open down tomorrow.

However, there were three large trades (before the Betaville report was published) between 3:31pm and 3:32pm on Friday and they might provide some support to the share price tomorrow. These trades didn't show up on ADVFN or London and South East until after the market had closed. They involved respectively 340,000, 145,800 and 97,200 shares and all three were at 205p although at the time they were transacted the spread was just 199.6 to 200.5 so it looks very much like they were purchases.

I bought AMS at 189.38p per share on 15 April 2025 so it was nice to see Friday's price spike, albeit after it had happened.

If I remember correctly the previous brief spike was also on a Friday, 2 May.

- On 1 May AMS closed at 199.

- Between 3:44 and 3:59 pm on 2 May they surged 16p from about 198.0 to 214.0 which was the intra-day high. During the surge there were quite a lot of trades at 210 or more and they closed at 204.5.

- On Tuesday 6 May they closed at 196

It was announced via the RNS at 2:30 pm yesterday (Thursday) that the Takeover Panel have agreed to extend UTG's put-up-or-shut-up deadline by two weeks from from 5pm today to 5 pm on Thursday 14 August. An extension was number (2) of the possibilities set out in my 29th July comment, below.

UTG's proposal is on the basis of a mix of cash and new UTG shares so the continuing fall in its share price has caused the value of the proposed offer to ESP shareholders to fall well below 106.995p per ESP share which it was worth at UTG's closing price the day before its approach to ESP was announced. Yesterday's UTG closing price of 748.5p was yet another new 52-week low and it means that its proposal now values each ESP share at just 97.365p. Today ESP closed at 96.4p.

According to yesterday's announcement, UTG and ESP remain in positive discussions and ESP requested, and the Takeover Panel granted, the extension to allow more time to complete due diligence and documentation. Whilst there is absolutely no certainty that UTG will make a formal offer, I am now of the view that it's 75% likely that UTG will make one and it will have a bigger cash element, up from the 30p per share of the UTG's proposal, to make up for the fall in its share price. On the strength of this I now rate ESP a buy and I'm thinking of buying some of its shares.

If UTG do make a formal offer, it might come before the new new PUSU deadline.

A few moments ago I added a comment almost identical to this one to London and South East's chatboard for ESP.

It was announced via the RNS at 2:30 pm yesterday (Thursday) that the Takeover Panel have agreed to extend UTG's put-up-or-shut-up deadline by two weeks from from 5pm today to 5 pm on Thursday 14 August. An extension was number (2) of the possibilities set out in my 29th July comment, below.

UTG's proposal is on the basis of a mix of cash and new UTG shares so the continuing fall in its share price has caused the value of the proposed offer to ESP shareholders to fall well below 106.995p per ESP share which it was worth at UTG's closing price the day before its approach to ESP was announced. Yesterday's UTG closing price of 748.5p was yet another new 52-week low and it means that its proposal now values each ESP share at just 97.365p. Today ESP closed at 96.4p.

According to yesterday's announcement, UTG and ESP remain in positive discussions and ESP requested, and the Takeover Panel granted, the extension to allow more time to complete due diligence and documentation. Whilst there is absolutely no certainty that UTG will make a formal offer, I am now of the view that it's 75% likely that UTG will make one and it will have a bigger cash element, up from the 30p per share of the UTG's proposal, to make up for the fall in its share price. On the strength of this I now rate ESP a buy and I'm thinking of buying some of its shares.

If UTG do make a formal offer, it might come before the new new PUSU deadline.

In a few moments I'm going to add a comment almost identical to this one to London and South East's chatboard for UTG.

SatansBolete -

According to your 29th July comment you believe another takeover bid from Volex for TT Electronics is very close, it was a perfect fit when the approach was made last year, and nothing has changed. In his statement accompanying the 2024-2025 preliminary results announcement on 27 June 2025 Nat Rothschild (Volex's Executive Chairman) said "We remain firmly on track to deliver our five-year strategic plan ... underpinned by ... an active acquisition pipeline that is closely aligned with our strategic priorities and financial returns criteria" therefore we can expect acquisitions of other businesses but surely it's very doubtful that he was alluding to TT Elecronics, so what evidence do you have which informs your belief?

Volex's announcement of its approach to TT Electronics at the same as it announced its interims on 15th November last year spooked the market. Volex's share price dived because of the amount of new debt which it would have had to take on to help it to fund the acquisition. You say that nothing has changed, so wouldn't the market react in the same way were Volex to announce another approach in the near future (e.g. within the next 6 months)?

Incidentally:

- (1) Expecting last November's interim figures to be stellar and for the shares to spike up for a good quick profit I bought Volex at about 336.25p on 11th November 2024. With no sign of an immediate price recovery following the dive in the share price due to the 15th November announcement of the approach for TT Electronics, I eventually got out at 287.24p on 20th November. I lost more than 14.6%.

- (2) Seeing the steady improvement in the share price (apart from the big fall affecting most shares in early April due to concerns about the USA's tariff policy which turned out to be a blip from which the markets soon recovered) and expecting the full year results being announced on Thursday 26th June to be stellar I bought at about 316.25p on 25th June in the hope of a spike up for a good quick profit. On Friday 26th June I sold just under half of the shares which I'd bought for 384.16 and the remainder for 385.82. My profit in in two days was 21.67%.

- (3) Fortunately, second time around I bought about 40% more shares than I'd bought in November so the cash profit on my June trade was about 1.925 times, i.e. almost double, the amount of cash which I'd lost on my November trade .

The recent share price moves are interesting. Selected closing prices are:

- Friday 27 June, the day after the 2024-2025 results announcement: 389.0

- Thursday 3 July: 381.5

- Thursday 10 July: 379.5

- Friday 11 July: 367.5

- Wednesday 23 July: 355.0

- Friday 25 July: 369.0

- Monday 28 July: 365.0

- Tuesday 29 July: 370.0

- Wednesday 30 July: 380.0

Moments ago the spread was 372.5 to 374.

Moments ago I added a comment almost identical to this one to London and South East's chatboard for Empric Student Property (ESP).

In my comment on 27 July (below) I suggested that UTG might have been working on their due diligence and on the offer documents so that they could announce a formal offer for ESP at the same time as they announce their interim results at 7 am today. There hasn't been a bid announcement and as far as I can see from my brief perusal of the interim results announcement it doesn't say anything about their approach to take over ESP.

UTG's put-up-or-shut-up deadline for their approach to take over ESP is 5 pm this coming Thursday 31 July 2025 so between now and the deadline there's bound to be an announcement. The possibilities are:

- (1) UTG will say that they aren't going to make a formal offer. If they do, they'll be frozen out from making another approach for ESP for six months unless another entity makes an approach or one of the other exemptions applies.

- (2) On request from ESP the Takeover Panel agrees to another extension of the put-up-or-shut-up deadline to allow more time for UTG to complete their due diligence and/or for the formal offer documents to be negotiated.

- (3) UTG and ESP have agreed on the terms of a formal offer which ESP is prepared to recommend to its shareholders.

- (4) UTG and ESP can't agree on terms so UTG is going to go hostile.

The market cpontinues to be taking a negative view on UTG's half-year results and/or on the possible takeover because UTG has hit another 52 week low this morning at 760.5p. A few moments ago:

- UTG were 769.0 to 770.0 with a mid-price of 769.5 which implies a value of 99.255p per ESP share against a value of 106.995p at the close on the day before UTG's approach was announced.

- The spread on ESP was 97.3 to 97.4.

It looks like UTG would have to increase the cash element significantly to make their proposal attractive to ESP.

Do people on this chat board think that UTG will make a formal offer for ESP?

In a few moments I'm going to add a comment almost identical to this one to London and South East's chatboard for Unite Group (UTG).

In my comment on 27 July (below) I suggested that UTG might have been working on their due diligence and on the offer documents so that they could announce a formal offer for ESP at the same time as they announce their interim results at 7 am today. There hasn't been a bid announcement and as far as I can see from my brief perusal of the interim results announcement it doesn't say anything about their approach to take over ESP.

UTG's put-up-or-shut-up deadline for their approach to take over ESP is 5 pm this coming Thursday 31 July 2025 so between now and the deadline there's bound to be an announcement. The possibilities are:

- (1) UTG will say that they aren't going to make a formal offer. If they do, they'll be frozen out from making another approach for ESP for six months unless another entity makes an approach or one of the other exemptions applies.

- (2) On request from ESP the Takeover Panel agrees to another extension of the put-up-or-shut-up deadline to allow more time for UTG to complete their due diligence and/or for the formal offer documents to be negotiated.

- (3) UTG and ESP have agreed on the terms of a formal offer which ESP is prepared to recommend to its shareholders.

- (4) UTG and ESP can't agree on terms so UTG is going to go hostile.

The market cpontinues to be taking a negative view on UTG's half-year results and/or on the possible takeover because UTG has hit another 52 week low this morning at 760.5p. A few moments ago:

- UTG were 769.0 to 770.0 with a mid-price of 769.5 which implies a value of 99.255p per ESP share against a value of 106.995p at the close on the day before UTG's approach was announced.

- The spread on ESP was 97.3 to 97.4.

It looks like UTG would have to increase the cash element significantly to make their proposal attractive to ESP.

Do people on this chat board think that UTG will make a formal offer for ESP?

Moments ago I added a comment almost identical to this one to London and South East's chatboard for Empiric Student Property PLC (ESP).

UTG's put-up-or-shut-up deadline for their approach to take over ESP is 5 pm this coming Thursday 31 July 2025. They announce their half-year results this coming Tuesday 29 July 2025 at 7 am.

Not all takeover approaches go to the wire. Recently the annoucement of the agreed takeover for Renold was made a few days before the bidder's put-up-or-shut-up deadline. Of course at or just before the deadline some predators annnounce that they are not going to pursue the target and pull out. A fairly recent example of this was a few months ago when Montague Private equity announced that they weren't going to make a formal offer for Advanced Medical Solutions (AMS).

Investors and traders in UTG and ESP need to be aware of the possibility that if UTG are keen to get their hands on ESP and if by late tomorrow (Monday) or the small hours of Tuesday morning they have completed their due diligence and the two companies have agreed takeover terms which ESP is prepared to recommend to its shareholders, it's possible that an announcement of a formal takeover offer could be made at the same time as UTG issue their interims at 7 am Tuesday. However, if late on Monday or early on Tuesday due diligence and negotiations concerning the terms of a possible takeover offer are still in progress it's likely that by 5pm on Thursday there'll be an announcement of an extension to the put-up-or-shut-up deadline.

My previous paragraph takes a positive view as to how things might pan out. However, the market seems to be taking a negative view because UTG's closing price of 782p on Friday 25 July (when it hit a 52 week low of 778.5p) implies a value of 100.38p per ESP share against a value of 106.995p at the close on the day before UTG's approach was announced. ESP closed at 98.5p on Friday.

Do people on this chat board think that UTG will make a formal offer for ESP?

I'm about to add a comment almost identical to this one to London and South East's chatboard for Unite Group (UTG).

UTG's put-up-or-shut-up deadline for their approach to take over Empiric is 5 pm this coming Thursday 31 July 2025. They announce their half-year results this coming Tuesday 29 July 2025 at 7 am.

Not all takeover approaches go to the wire. Recently the annoucement of the agreed takeover for Renold were announced a few days before the bidder's put-up-or-shut-up deadline. Of course at or just before the deadline some predators annnounce that they are not going to pursue the target and pull out. A fairly recent example of this was a few months ago when Montague Private equity announced that they weren't going to make a formal offer for Advanced Medical Solutions (AMS).

Investors and traders in UTG and ESP need to be aware of the possibility that if UTG are keen to get their hands on ESP and if by late tomorrow (Monday) or the small hours of Tuesday morning they have completed their due diligence and the two companies have agreed takeover terms which ESP is prepared to recommend to its shareholders, it's possible that an announcement of a formal takeover offer could be made at the same time as UTG issue their interims at 7 am Tuesday. However, if late on Monday or early on Tuesday due diligence and negotiations concerning the terms of a possible takeover offer are still in progress it's likely that by 5pm on Thursday there'll be an announcement of an extension to the put-up-or-shut-up deadline.

My previous paragraph takes a positive view as to how things might pan out. However, the market seems to be taking a negative view because UTG's closing price of 782p on Friday 25 July (when it hit a 52 week low of 778.5p) implies a value of 100.38p per ESP share against a value of 106.995p at the close on the day before UTG's approach was announced. ESP closed at 98.5p on Friday.

Do people on this chat board think that UTG will make a formal offer for ESP?

I added my comment on 21 July 2025 (below) both here and on London and South East's chat page for Empiric. On 22 July someone called Me12345 responded there as follows:

"A lot of questions you want answering I personally hold both shares around £5k Utg and 3k Esp which I have being trading also while we wait.Think we will see a deal and confirmation of one will probably see share price move up which has probably been depressed buy the acceptance level update which I’m not worried about.There is a big private outfit think about same size or bigger than Unite so could enter the fray but not long to find out.Good look"

I quote the key parts of my follow-up comment on London and South East's chat page for Empiric on 23 July:

"I don't hold Unite or Empiric.

In the last year or so I've made some good profits out of takeover situations (e.g. Aviva for Direct Line, Greencore for Bakkavor and the contested bids from the KKR/Stonepeak consortium and from Primary Health Properties for Assura).

I was thinking of taking a position in Empiric but bearing in mind that once a target company says that it will recommend a proposal to its shareholders and a formal offer is then made the target's share price initially sits at a discount of 4% to 6% to the offer price to reflect the time to completion of the takeover and the risk of it not going all the way to completion, on the current showing it looks like I'd probably make a gain of just 2% to 3% if Empiric does recommend the current Unite proposal unless Unite says it will pay more or a counter-bidder steps in. I'd prefer to make a gain of about 5% if I were to buy in at this stage of a potential bid scenario. Having said that, a profit is still a profit.

My view is that it is unlikely that Unite will walk away."

Me12345 -

Thank you for your comment at 20:30 yesterday responding to mine of yesterday.

I don't hold Unite or Empiric.

In the last year or so I've made some good profits out of takeover situations (e.g. Aviva for Direct Line, Greencore for Bakkavor and the contested bids from the KKR/Stonepeak consortium and from Primary Health Properties for Assura).

I was thinking of taking a position in Empiric but bearing in mind that once a target company says that it will recommend a proposal to its shareholders and a formal offer is then made the target's share price initially sits at a discount of 4% to 6% to the offer price to reflect the time to completion of the takeover and the risk of it not going all the way to completion, on the current showing it looks like I'd probably make a gain of just 2% to 3% if Empiric does recommend the current Unite proposal unless Unite says it will pay more or a counter-bidder steps in. I'd prefer to make a gain of about 5% if I were to buy in at this stage of a potential bid scenario. Having said that, a profit is still a profit.

My view is that it is unlikely that Unite will walk away.

Moments ago I added a comment almost identical to this one to London and South East's chatboard for Empiric.

On 3 July Unite's put-up-or-shut-up deadline was extended to 5 pm on Thursday 31 July to give them time to conclude their due diligence on Empiric.

Unite's takeover proposal is a mixed cash and share offer for Empiric. It's 30p plus 0.09 new Unite shares for each Empiric share.

Since the announcement, the Unite's share price has been on a downward trend. Last Wednesday 16 July was their lowest close since their approach was announced. It was 789p. That day Empiric closed at 98.2 and the following day, Thursday 17 July, they closed at 97.9p which was their lowest close since the announcement.

Since those lows last week, both companies' share prices have recoverd a bit. Today Empiric closed up 1.02 (1.21%) at 100.2 and Unite closed up 4.5 (0.56%) at 804.5p. This implies a value of 102.405p per Empric share. However, Unite's closing price on 4 June, just before their approach was announced on 5 June, was 855.5 which implied a value of 106.995p per Empiric share.

I have a few questions on which I'd like people on this chatboard to comment:

- (1) Unite's share price needs to recover by 6.34% from today's close if their proposed terms are to again imply a value of 106.995 for each Empiric share. What are the chances of that happening?

- (2) Will Unite have to increase the cash element to get Empiric's board to recommend their proposal to its shareholders and/or to persuade Empiric's shareholders to accept a formal takeover offer?

- (3) Will Unite have to borrow to enable them to finance the cash element of any formal takeover offer?

- (4) If Unite were to increase the cash element to more than 30p per Empiric share, would their balance sheet be able to take the strain of all the additional gearing?

- (5) If Empiric's board don't recommend Unite's proposal, would Unite go hostile?

- (6) What are the chances of another predator (e.g. a US private equity investor) entering the fray with a proposal which is better than the current one from Unite?

I'm about to add a comment almost identical to this one to London and South East's chatboard for Unite.

On 3 July Unite's put-up-or-shut-up deadline was extended to 5 pm on Thursday 31 July to give them time to conclude their due diligence on Empiric.

Unite's takeover proposal is a mixed cash and share offer for Empiric. It's 30p plus 0.09 new Unite shares for each Empiric share.

Since the announcement, the Unite's share price has been on a downward trend. Last Wednesday 16 July was their lowest close since their approach was announced. It was 789p. That day Empiric closed at 98.2 and the following day, Thursday 17 July, they closed at 97.9p which was their lowest close since the announcement.

Since those lows last week, both companies' share prices have recoverd a bit. Today Empiric closed up 1.02 (1.21%) at 100.2 and Unite closed up 4.5 (0.56%) at 804.5p. This implies a value of 102.405p per Empric share. However, Unite's closing price on 4 June, just before their approach was announced on 5 June, was 855.5 which implied a value of 106.995p per Empiric share.

I have a few questions on which I'd like people on this chatboard to comment:

- (1) Unite's share price needs to recover by 6.34% from today's close if their proposed terms are to again imply a value of 106.995 for each Empiric share. What are the chances of that happening?

- (2) Will Unite have to increase the cash element to get Empiric's board to recommend their proposal to its shareholders and/or to persuade Empiric's shareholders to accept a formal takeover offer?

- (3) Will Unite have to borrow to enable them to finance the cash element of any formal takeover offer?

- (4) If Unite were to increase the cash element to more than 30p per Empiric share, would their balance sheet be able to take the strain of all the additional gearing?

- (5) If Empiric's board don't recommend Unite's proposal, would Unite go hostile?

- (6) What are the chances of another predator (e.g. a US private equity investor) entering the fray with a proposal which is better than the current one from Unite?