25th Feb 2019 14:46
LONDON (Alliance News) - Flacks Group LLC on Monday confirmed it is in the preliminary stages of evaluating a potential offer for home furnishing and fashion retailer Laura Ashley Holdings PLC.
If made, any offer is expected to be in cash for a maximum of 2.748 pence per Laura Ashley share, valuing the company at GBP20 million. This price is considered by Flacks to be final and will not be increased or decreased.
Laura Ashley shares were trading down 1.2% at 3.20 pence each on Monday afternoon, recovering from an intraday lower of 2.99p.
There can be no certainty that any offer will be made, Flacks said, but it has until March 25 to either announce a final intention or back out.
Laura Ashley earlier on Monday denied a newspaper report of a possible takeover offer and said that no approach whatsoever had been received by the company.
The Sunday Telegraph reported that Laura Ashley was the subject of a takeover offer from Manchester-born entrepreneur Michael Flacks.
According to the newspaper, Flacks was to approach Laura Ashley's Malaysian controlling shareholders about taking it private and reviving it. The embattled British retailer is controlled by the MUI Group of Malaysia.
Laura Ashley Chair Andrew Khoo said earlier Monday: "If and when an approach is made, the board will discharge its duties as always and assess it on its relative merits."
"I would however like to state for the record that as major shareholders of Laura Ashley, we have no intention of divesting our shareholding. Whilst I understand why potential parties would think we are significantly undervalued, I have complete confidence that we will be able to grow profitably and in a sustainable manner so as to create long-term value for our shareholders," Khoo added.
Last week, Laura Ashley announced it had swung to pretax loss of GBP1.5 million for the interim period to the end of 2018 from a GBP4.3 million pretax profit a year ago. In December, the company announced plans to close 40 stores, reducing its store footprint to 120 from 160.
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