London, May 16, 2026, 20:07 BST
- Intertek closed Friday at 5,615p, down 1.1% on the day but up about 14% from May 8, after a week driven by EQT’s £60-a-share final proposal.
- EQT has until 5 p.m. on June 11 to make a firm offer or walk away; Intertek’s annual meeting is due on May 20.
Intertek Group plc goes into the new week with its shares still below EQT’s £60-a-share cash proposal, a gap that shows investors are not treating the takeover as finished business. The London-listed testing and inspection group last traded at 5,615p on Friday, leaving it about 7% under the proposed cash price after a volatile, bid-driven week.
The London market was shut on Saturday. Intertek’s Friday close followed a 1.1% fall on the day, but the stock still gained about 14% over the week from its May 8 close of 4,910p.
That matters now because the stock has stopped trading like a normal industrial support services name and started trading like a live deal spread. In plain English, a deal spread is the gap between a company’s share price and the takeover price, and it often reflects the market’s view of approval, financing, due diligence and timing risk.
Intertek said on May 13 that its board would be “minded to recommend” EQT’s final conditional proposal if a firm offer is made on the same financial terms and full deal documents are agreed. The proposal is £60 per share in cash and allows shareholders to keep a final dividend of up to 107.7p per share for 2025, subject to approval at the company’s May 20 annual meeting. Investegate
The company has paused work on its strategic review while giving EQT access to confirmatory due diligence, the checks a buyer runs before signing a formal offer. EQT must announce a firm bid under Rule 2.7 of the UK Takeover Code, or say it does not intend to bid, by 5 p.m. on June 11.
The move capped a sharp turn by Intertek’s board, which had rejected earlier EQT proposals of £51.50, £54 and £58 a share. Reuters reported that Intertek shares rose as much as 8% on May 13 to their highest level in more than four years after the board shifted toward the £60 proposal.
Pressure from investors helped force the issue. Reuters reported that Lost Coast Collective, PrimeStone Capital and Palliser Capital had pushed Intertek to engage with EQT, while Panmure Liberum analyst Joe Brent said there was a “good chance” Intertek would accept the latest offer because short-term investors would want to lock in a quick profit rather than risk a fall back toward pre-bid levels. Reuters
Morningstar analyst Ben Slupecki told Reuters that as the offer rose, “the pressure ramped up” and management could no longer easily argue it could extract the same value from the business alone, given where the shares had been trading. Reuters said Intertek had been around £35 a share before EQT’s first approach in April. Reuters
The wider tape was not much help on Friday. The FTSE 100 fell 1.7% to 10,195.37, giving back gains from earlier in the week, while Intertek’s retreat looked more like deal-spread caution than broad index weakness alone.
Intertek sits in the testing, inspection and certification market, where SGS and Bureau Veritas are the most direct public peers. Reuters reported last year that SGS and Bureau Veritas had explored a tie-up that would have created a testing and certification group worth more than $30 billion, a sign that scale and portfolio shape remain live questions across the sector.
The risk is simple: no firm offer is guaranteed. Intertek’s own announcement said there could be “no certainty” that any offer would be made, even if preconditions are met or waived; EQT also reserved rights to alter terms in some takeover-code situations. If due diligence turns up a problem, or if shareholders split over valuation, the stock could lose some of the bid premium quickly. Investegate
For the week ahead, the first set piece is Intertek’s AGM on Wednesday, where the dividend approval and investor tone will be watched closely. The bigger clock is still June 11. Until then, the share price is likely to trade less on testing demand or margins and more on whether EQT can turn a final proposal into a signed offer.
