Hunter hunted

9 November 2009 By Nicholas Paisner

The chocolatier’s chairman plotted the most recent winning UK hostile bid: Centrica s £1.4bn takeover of Venture Production. Now Roger Carr must taste his own dish. Kraft s cheeky hostile offer for Cadbury seems inspired by that very deal.

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Roger Carr has been chairman of UK utility Centrica since May 2004. He was appointed chairman of Cadbury in July 2008.

Centrica announced that it had purchased 22% of UK oil and gas company Venture Production for £240mn in March 2009.

On June 17 2009, following a request from Venture, the UK's Takeover Panel announced that Centrica would have to announce whether or not it would make an offer for Venture by July 13.

Centrica launched a formal cash offer on July 10. Centrica said that its 845p offer, which valued Venture at £1.3bn, was final and would not be increased unless a competitive situation emerged. The UK utility also stated that it had increased its shareholding to 29.9% following the acquisition of a 5.4% stake in Venture from 3i Group.

Venture's board was unanimous in its conclusion that Centrica's offer was "not in the best interests of shareholders" and "substantially undervalued" Venture. Many analysts agreed, with Collins Stewart suggesting that Venture's net asset value was 938p but that the value of the business to Centrica was much higher due to lower financing costs.

Centrica's offer became wholly unconditional on 27 August.

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