The group which owns Isle of Wight Radio, The Local Radio Company, has received an official takeover bid.
The company making the bid, UKRD Group Limited, are bidding for all of the currently issued shares.
It looks like they’re pretty serious about it, having control over nearly 30 per cent of the shares already.
UKRD already owns 9,725,000 Local Radio Shares representing approximately 13.51 per cent of the existing issued ordinary share capital of Local Radio.
The chairman of UKRD, Trevor Smallwood, has also built up his own holding of 11,520,000 Local Radio shares representing a further approximately 16.00 per cent. of Local Radio’s shares. He has entered into an irrevocable undertaking to sell his shares to UKRD.
Offer price – 2p per share
The UKRD offer is 2p per share, double the 1.0 pence per Local Radio Shares were trading at on 26 March 2009.
At the 2p offer price that values the existing issued ordinary share capital of Local Radio at approximately £1.44 million.
Commenting on the Offer, Trevor Smallwood, Chairman of UKRD, said:
‘We believe the Offer represents an attractive premium over recent trading levels and is in the best interests of Local Radio Shareholders as a whole. The combination of UKRD and Local Radio will result in a stronger player in the local radio sector throughout the UK and an expanded service offering to listeners. We strongly believe that the Offer is considerably more attractive than the open offer proposal announced by Local Radio on 6 March 2009, which is totally unacceptable and could potentially result in loss of control of Local Radio to two Local Radio Directors and heavy dilution for other Local Radio Shareholders.’
Background on UKRD
UKRD describes itself as – “a multi-media business which owns and operates six local commercial radio services, a range of web-based businesses and a software development and support business. It has an interest in a further commercial radio service and a company operating a local digital multiplex. As part of a consortium, it has won the licences to operate three further local digital multiplexes.”
The six local radio services owned and operated by UKRD are:
County Sound Radio 1566 AM
96.4 Eagle Radio
KL.FM 96.7
Pirate FM 102
Star Cambridge 107 FM
Star North Somerset 107.7 FM
Background on The Local Radio Company
Local Radio is a public limited company incorporated in England and Wales with company number 4931007 which is listed on AIM and which owns and operates 20 local radio licences across the UK:
Alpha Radio
Arrow FM
Durham FM
FIRE Radio
Isle of Wight Radio
Jazz FM
Minster FM
Minster Northallerton
Mix 107
Mix 96
Silk FM
Sovereign Radio
Spire FM
Spirit FM
Stray FM
Sun FM
The Quay
Wessex FM
Yorkshire Coast Radio.
More details
There’s a ton more detail available in the actual offer. We’d be really interested to hear if you come up with more details.
