News / Signs of shareholder revolt after directors recommend UTi Worldwide sale to DSV

22/10/2015

The first signs of a shareholder revolt appeared at US forwarder UTi Worldwide yesterday over its board’s recommendation to accept the purchase offer from Danish 3PL DSV.

DSV tabled a $1.35bn offer for UTi on 9 October, offering long-suffering investors the chance to exit the company at a price of $7.10 per share – an offer one advisory company acting on behalf of UTi shareholders yesterday described as “paltry” and called on them to reject the bid.

Sterling Capital Management yesterday filed ...

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Robert Jervis
October 22, 2015 at 2:38 pm
Dear Gav

Presumably, Sterling Capital Management differs from the rest of the investment community in thinking UTi undervalued – otherwise other investors would have been piling in? I thought many had baled?

Or maybe Sterling should have acquired a larger stake?

Brian Moran is understandably doing nothing more than his job in trying to get the price up – but that doesn’t mean he’s correct.

As is usual – the only price that matters is the one that both buyer and seller agree upon

Yours aye

Rob

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- Gavin van Marle
  October 22, 2015 at 5:33 pm
  Indeed – I had a long conversation this morning with an analyst about this morning. UTi’s share prices has a wide spread over the past 12 months, and given that this is a long-term investor would likely have paid much more than $7.10 a share. It’s defending its clients’ position
  
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Ale Pasetti
October 22, 2015 at 5:29 pm
A back-of-the-evelope calculation suggests that Sterling is under water with its UTi investment. Hence, their call to reject the offer. I wouldn’t worry too much though, and DSV can surely offer a higher premium, but I doubt it’ll go any higher than $7.70 a share.

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Nick Coverdale
October 22, 2015 at 10:10 pm
“Golden IT platform ” – does anyone think that DSV doesn’t have a perfectly good IT system, that it would be a major consideration in the purchase. Absolutely not, the bottom line is what matters and what the purchase brings to the buyer.

DSV is one of the few freight forwarding companies I admire, it will pay what it is worth to them (DSV), not some investor’s dreamed up calculation.

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