London, June 25, 2026, 16:10 BST
- Intertek traded at a 5,800p bid and 5,805p ask, leaving a 3.36% gross upside to the £60 cash offer.
- The 107.7p final dividend paid out on June 24. Anyone buying now won’t get the dividend, just the £60 cash leg.
- The given Q4 2026/Q1 2027 close implies the spread offers a 4.4%-13.1% annualized return pre-costs.
Intertek Group plc (LON:ITRK) last showed a 5,800p bid and 5,805p ask in delayed London trading. The spread points to a 195p per share gross gain for anyone buying at the ask and tendering into the £60 a share bid from the EQT AB (STO:EQT)-led consortium.
Investors looking to buy fresh aren’t eligible for the widely referenced £61.077 payout. The 107.7p final dividend went out to qualifying shareholders on Wednesday. Now, only the takeover cash is left on the table for new buyers.
Applied to Intertek’s full diluted share count of 155.15 million, the offer leaves a 195p gap, or about £303 million. Under the terms, Bidco can also cut the £60 price by the value of later dividends or capital returns. CEO André Lacroix called it “cash certainty today”. The deal still needs backing from shareholders, regulators, and the court. Intertek
Mechanical annualization comes to around 13.1% if cash hits accounts on October 1, drops to 6.6% if paid at year-end, and is 4.4% for March 31, 2027. Those numbers assume payment lands on the effective date and don’t count fees, tax or financing.
The Bank of England keeps its Bank Rate at 3.75%. Finishing the deal in late March would mean an extra 0.7 percentage point of gross annualized return over Bank Rate, but there’s still a chance the deal gets delayed or doesn’t go through.
Binary model readings on completion are up. With Intertek closing at £43.63 before the offer period, the 5,805p ask signals an 88.1% implied chance of getting £60. On the £37.70 close before EQT’s first shot, it’s 91.3%. These are market-implied odds, not predictions, and they skip time value and any change in Intertek’s standalone worth.
The reference prices show mark-to-break losses of 24.8% and 35.1%. That means there’s about £7.40 to £10.40 of downside for every £1 of gross upside.
The scheme needs more than half of those voting at the Court Meeting to back it, representing at least 75% of shares voted. Another resolution also has to get 75% approval from votes cast. The meetings are set to happen by August 6, then court sanction and clearances would follow.
Morningstar’s Ben Slupecki said in May he saw “regulatory risk as limited” with EQT in the deal, since EQT is a private-equity firm and not an industry player. At that point, before EQT made its firm offer or got a board recommendation from Intertek, Slupecki put the chance of completion at 75%. Morningstar
Palliser Capital founder James Smith said the agreement was a “positive outcome for shareholders”. PrimeStone Capital, which owns roughly 0.5% of Intertek, said it would back the deal too. Reuters
Nomura International disclosed a 4.21 million Intertek share holding and cash-settled shorts over 4.18 million, according to a June 25 Takeover Code filing. The filing showed Nomura bought 71,561 Intertek shares at £58.0406 on June 24 and added a swap short for the same amount at the same price.
