London, May 13, 2026, 09:11 BST
- Intertek shares rose 6.9% to 5,665p in early London trade after the board said it would be minded to recommend EQT’s final £60-a-share cash proposal. Shareholders could also keep a 107.7p final dividend if approved.
- The move is about deal probability, not just price. Intertek is giving EQT due diligence access, pausing its break-up review, and working to a June 11 deadline for a firm offer or withdrawal.
- Bulls see cash certainty after years of valuation frustration. Bears point to the remaining discount to the £61.08 effective value and the fact that no binding offer has yet been made.
Intertek’s chart changed because the board’s posture changed. By 09:10 BST, the stock was up 365p at 5,665p, near a fresh 52-week high, after opening at 5,710p and trading between 5,660p and 5,722.41p. That still left it below the full economic value of EQT’s proposal, which is the market’s way of saying the deal is likely, not done.
The key word this morning was “minded.” Intertek said it would be minded to recommend EQT’s final conditional proposal if a firm offer is announced on the same financial terms, subject to due diligence and definitive documents. That is a material shift from rejecting earlier bids at £51.50, £54 and £58 a share. Investegate
That is why the share move had force. Tuesday’s rally priced in a richer bid. Today’s rally priced in a higher chance the board lets the transaction happen. Intertek had already jumped 6.43% to £53.00 on Tuesday, even as the FTSE 100 slipped, so the stock has now had a two-step repricing from bid speculation to near-recommendation.
The latest proposal is £60 a share in cash, with the 2025 final dividend of up to 107.7p per share left intact if approved at the May 20 AGM. Reuters reported the package at about £9.4 billion, or $12.72 billion, and said it represented a 40% premium to Intertek’s April 15 closing price, the day before EQT’s first approach became public.
The spread tells the rest of the story. At 5,665p, Intertek was about 5.9% below the £60 cash price and roughly 7.8% below the £61.08 value including the expected dividend. That gap is not random. It reflects remaining due diligence risk, documentation risk, and the blunt warning that there is still “no certainty” a formal offer will be made.
Intertek also parked the alternative plan that had been supporting the standalone case. In April, the company launched a strategic review to test whether Intertek Testing & Assurance and Intertek Energy & Infrastructure should be separated by sale or demerger. The board has now paused that work while EQT looks under the hood.
Operationally, Intertek was not coming to this from a weak update. First-quarter revenue rose 6.7% to £838.5 million, while like-for-like revenue — sales growth excluding acquisitions and similar portfolio effects — rose 5.4% at constant currency, which strips out exchange-rate moves. Chief Executive André Lacroix called it “a strong start to the year in Q1 26,” with growth led by Consumer Products and Corporate Assurance. Investegate
That is the bull case for staying public: the business has pricing, volume growth, margin progress and a clean quality-assurance theme. Testing, inspection and certification demand tends to follow regulation, supply-chain scrutiny, energy transition work and product safety needs. SGS, Bureau Veritas and UL Solutions sit in the same broad market, so a high-premium bid for Intertek gives investors a fresh yardstick for the sector, not just for one London stock.
The bullish case for the deal is simpler. EQT is offering cash now, at a level many shareholders may see as better than waiting for a split, asset sale, or multi-year margin story. Lost Coast Collective, which said it owns about 1.2% of Intertek, told the board the “time for resisting EQT” was over and that the offer gave superior risk-adjusted value; Matthew Peltz signed the letter as CEO with the line, “It is time to make a deal.” Businessinsider
The bear case cuts the other way. Intertek’s own board still says it is confident in the standalone strategy, and the strategic review might have unlocked value if executed well. There is also no firm Rule 2.7 offer yet, only a final conditional proposal. A failed process would leave investors trying to value the old plan again, and probably at a lower price than this morning’s deal-led level.
Shareholder pressure matters here. PrimeStone Capital, which said it owned about 0.5% of Intertek through advised funds, had urged the company to “engage constructively” with EQT and questioned the credibility of the split review after the earlier £58 bid was rejected. That pressure now looks important in the board’s shift. Reuters
For now, Intertek is trading less like a normal earnings stock and more like a merger-arbitrage spread — the gap between the live market price and the proposed takeover value. The next catalyst is not another quarterly metric. It is whether EQT can finish due diligence, lock the terms, and announce a firm offer by June 11.
