BikeBiz Bicycle and cycling retail news
On Thursday 5th April, Madison management find out whether their MBO is back on track.
The person responsible for the delay so far is Dr. Samann of US investment firm Lakefield, which owns the Magic Tree air freshener brand, which is distributed in the UK by H Young plc.
Lakefield owns 17 percent of H Youngs shares, a holding Samann has been amassing since last year.
He has a hostile bid in for the whole group but is only offering 77p a share, valuing the whole group at £33m. The sale of Madison and Leeda alone (two of H Youngs seven brands) will bring 79p a share to the group.
Whilst Lakefield is H Youngs largest single shareholder, Dr Samann will likely be outvoted by the rest of the 1000+ shareholders (the biggest of which are blue chip financial institutions).
The £17.9m raised by the sale of Leeda and Madison would wipe out H Youngs debt of £16m.
Terry Bowles, the the executive director at Young in charge of Madison and the Chief-Executive-to-be of the new Madison, is currently in Taiwan at the Taipei trade show but is expected to be back in time for the H Young EGM.
