Proceed in negotiations with two bidders on acquisition
Gatwick Express and Thameslink operator Go-Ahead Group are considering offers from two bidders, as it becomes the latest British company to be a potential takeover target.
The company, which runs the UK’s largest commuter rail network, the Govia Thameslink Railway, and is a leading provider of bus services in London and across the country, said it had received unsolicited potential offers from a consortium of Kleinian Group and Kinetic. and Globalvia Inversion.
Go-Ahead said that both conditional offers were “at a level that, should a concrete offer be made, the board would be ready to recommend to shareholders”.
Shares of the go-ahead jumped 20% on Monday morning upon the announcement, taking it to its highest level since 2020, when the company’s value collapsed at the start of the pandemic.
Kelsion is an Australian transport provider listed in Sydney, where Go-Ahead has previous contracts to modernize the rail system. Kinetic and Globalvia Inversions are global infrastructure firms that are both largely owned by Canadian pension fund OP Trust.
Go-Ahead also has contracts to run rail and bus services in Ireland, Singapore, Norway and Germany.
The news comes after a turbulent year for Go-Ahead in which it was embroiled in an accounting scandal, with the discovery that it wrongly kept more than £50m from the government during its Southeastern Rail franchise.
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It was removed from the contract, and trading in go-ahead shares on the London Stock Exchange was suspended in January after it failed to file accounts pending a new audit.
However, it has since won a further three-year contract to run the Thameslink, Southern and Great Northern franchises.
Bids for Go-Ahead come after rival UK transport operators were targeted for acquisitions, with Firstgroup last week rejecting a bid from I Squared Capital and Stagecoach, which in March accepted an offer from DWS Infrastructure. which was earlier set to merge with National Express.
