By Iain Gilbert
Date: Tuesday 24 Aug 2021
LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - Services and product development firm Science Group has snapped up another chunk of TP Group after its 5.8p per share acquisition attempt was said to have "significantly" undervalued the company.
Science Group now holds 140.52m shares in TP Group, giving it 18.03% of the company's voting share capital.
TP also rejected Science Group's revised offer of 6.5p per share, a price it insisted was more than generous given that it represented a premium of close to 67% on the stock's price when Science made its initial investment.
Science has also pushed for a general meeting to replace TP's chairman and a non-executive director with members of its own board but TP Group assured it had "no intention of engaging with Science Group".
However, today's purchase will make Science Group much more difficult to ignore, with the rejected suitor slamming TP's board, claiming that it had "consistently failed" to make "value for shareholders".
"The TP Group board seeks to blame the poor performance of the company on the Covid-19 pandemic. Yet, while the performance of TP Group has been weak, Science Group has reported resilient performance over the past two years," said Science Group.
"Science Group has informed the TP Group board that it does not intend to increase its indicative offer above 6.5p per share hence its offer of 6.5p per share is therefore final but reserves the right to do so if a third party announces an offer or possible offer for TP Group."
As of 0925 BST, Science Group shares were up 1.30% at 466.0p and TP Group shares were 5.29% lower at 5.73p.