Fnac jacks up Darty offer after Steinhoff's triple bid hike

The bidding war for France-focused electronics retailer Darty has intensified as longtime suitor Fnac upped its bid to 153p overnight, its second improved offer of the day as it battled South Africa-backed furniture retailer Conforma's 160p bid.

Having on Thursday morning hiked its offer to 145p, Fnac came back in the early evening with a further increased cash offer, with a partial share alternative, which values Darty at £822m.

This represents a premium of roughly 89% to the closing price of 81p per Darty share on 29 September, which was the last business day before Fnac first announced its possible offer.

Just after noon London time on Thursday, Conforama, which is a subsidiary of South African retail billionaire Christo Wiese's Steinhoff International, made a second offer of 150p, before two hours later turning the dial up to 160p.

Earlier in the day, before most of these bids, Darty, which has headquarters in London and was renamed from Kesa Electricals in 2012, said at around 0900 BST that it would “carefully consider” both offers and provide further advice to its shareholders in due course.

This followed Wednesday's purchase by Steinhoff International of a 19.5% stake in Darty at 138p per share, which it said it would extend as a cash offer to buy the remaining shares in the retailer, raising its 125p offer for Darty at the start of March.

Steinhoff and Conforama had then gatecrashed Fnac's bid, which had been stuck in the mire of the European Union regulatory clearance process since an offer was agreed in November.

Fnac had then offered one share for every 37 of Darty's, or a small partial cash alternative, which was originally worth around £558m but has improved as FNAC's shares have risen.