Japan’s Nikkei has acquired the Financial Times from Pearson,<\/strong><\/a> while the Swiss insurer Zurich confirmed that it had made a \u00a35bn approach to buy its London-listed rival, RSA\u200e.<\/p>\nA source close to Lone Star said on Tuesday that it had been examining an offer for Quintain for several months.<\/p>\n
It is said to have been attracted to the potential for the company’s land around Wembley Stadium, which is widely regarded as one of the best-remaining property development opportunities of scale in London.<\/p>\n
Quintain was established in 1992, floating on the London Stock Exchange four years later.<\/p>\n
In 1999, it acquired more than 18 acres of land on the Greenwich Peninsula shortly before the Millennium Dome was officially opened.<\/p>\n
After the initial poor performance of the Dome as a visitor attraction, the site’s subsequent redevelopment\u200e became a big commercial success, leading to a lucrative sale of Quintain’s interest to Knight Dragon, a Hong Kong property company.<\/p>\n
Under William Rucker, who became chairman in 2009\u200e, and Max James, who was recruited as chief executive three years later, Quintain’s shares have performed strongly as it has moved to reduce debts and transform its growth prospects.<\/p>\n
The company has secured planning permission for 1,300 homes at its Wembley site, and opened London’s only designer outlet park there in 2013 as part of a wider urban regeneration programme.<\/p>\n
During the last year, shares in Quintain – which closed on Tuesday at 107p – have risen by nearly 20%.<\/p>\n
The takeover bid for the company is understood to be pitched at a premium to its net asset value.<\/p>\n
Lone Star has amassed a substantial real estate empire in the UK, recently hiring bankers to advise on the future of a hotel portfolio that includes the Jurys Inn chain.<\/p>\n
An insider said its bid for Quintain represented a vote of confidence in the continued strength of the London property market.<\/p>\n
Morgan Stanley is understood to be advising Lone Star, while JP Morgan and Lazard are acting for Quintain.<\/p>\n
None of the parties involved in the deal could be reached for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The specialist London property group is close to agreeing a takeover by Lone Star Funds, Sky News learns. Quintain Estates and Development, the quoted property developer behind Wembley Arena, is in secret talks about a private equity takeover that will value it at more than \u00a3600m. Sky News can exclusively reveal that\u200e Quintain, which has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1270","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9PjAq-ku","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1270"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1270\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1270"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1270"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/poseidon-gp.com\/property\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1270"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}