NHS landlord Assura rejects £1.6bn swoop from US buyout big sending inventory surging 9%

Shares in a London-listed firm that manages doctors’ surgeries soared after it rejected a £1.6billion takeover bid from an American buyout giant.

Assura, the FTSE 250 real estate investment trust, turned down KKR – one of the biggest private equity outfits in the US – for the fourth time.

City analysts said the firm, whose stock surged 9 per cent yesterday, could attract rival offers, triggering a bidding war.

The approach for Assura comes as the stock market faces an exodus of listings as bidders swoop on undervalued companies. 

KKR had teamed up with the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS), which manages almost £90billion of retirement savings for UK lecturers, for its previous offers.

But USS yesterday pulled out of the consortium, saying it would not make another bid.

Offer: Assura, which manages doctors’ surgeries, turned down £1.6bn takeover bid from American buyout giant KKR 

KKR said it would consider ‘whether there is any merit in continuing to try and engage with the board’.

Under UK takeover rules, the buyout giant has until 5pm on March 14 to make a firm offer or walk away from a deal.

The New York firm said it had made three approaches following ‘significant work’ over the past six months. 

All of its previous offers were unanimously rejected by Assura’s board. Directors rejected the latest 48p per share proposal – which valued Assura at nearly £1.6billion and was a 28.2 per cent premium to last week’s closing share price – on Saturday.

‘KKR believes that the terms of the latest proposal offer a highly attractive opportunity for Assura shareholders to realise their investment in cash at a significant premium to prevailing market prices,’ the firm said.

According to the company’s latest financial statements, Assura’s net assets were valued at £1.6billion in September.

That means that KKR’s offer of £1.56billion was below the valuation of Assura’s property portfolio. Shore Capital analyst Andrew Saunders said: ‘Assura is well-managed, has a high-quality portfolio and many attributes of obvious attraction to the bidder.’

And analysts said other bidders may be weighing up an approach for Assura and other property trusts.

Russ Mould at broker AJ Bell said: ‘It will be interesting to see if KKR’s move flushes out any more interest from would-be buyers of UK real estate assets, be they private equity or industry players, or institutional or retail investors.’