John Menzies rejects £469m takeover bid

Airport services company John Menzies said on Wednesday that it had rejected a £469m takeover bid from National Aviation Services, a subsidiary of Kuwait’s Agility Public Warehousing.

Menzies said the preliminary and unsolicited proposal to buy the group at 510p a share in cash was "entirely opportunistic" and "fundamentally undervalues" the business and its future prospects.

Menzies also said the price implies a significantly lower EV/EBITDA multiple than achieved in comparable transactions over the last decade in the sector for other assets of its size and standing.

The proposal follows an earlier unsolicited approach from NAS regarding a possible all-cash offer at 460p a share.

Menzies chairman and chief executive Philipp Joeinig said: "The board of Menzies has unanimously rejected this unsolicited and highly opportunistic proposal, which we believe does not reflect Menzies' true intrinsic business worth or its prospects.

"Menzies continues to make good progress with strong performance across a number of service lines, which together with productivity gains, saw the group to finish last year strongly. This strong performance and momentum in 2021 has continued in 2022 with further contract wins and renewals alongside the continued recovery of global flight volumes."

At 1225 GMT, the shares were up 34% 449p.