FirstGroup tumbles as Apollo walks away

FirstGroup shares tumbled on Tuesday after private equity group Apollo Management said it would not be making an offer for the transport operator.

Apollo had until 1700 BST on Wednesday to make a firm offer or walk away.

FirstGroup, which runs the South Western Railway franchise and owns Greyhound buses in the US, said that it had received two preliminary and highly conditional indicative proposals from Apollo in recent weeks and after considering them in detail, concluded that they fundamentally undervalued the company. As a result, these were unanimously rejected.

"The board of FirstGroup continues to believe in the strong prospects for shareholder value creation available to the company," it said.

The group is due to publish its results for the year to 31 March 2018 at the end of this month and said it will update the market on its outlook then.

At 1105 BST, FirstGroup shares were down 8.5% to 101.50p.