There are two reasons to be suspicious of the Daniel Křetínský-led £3.6bn takeover offer for the parent company of Royal Mail. The first is the suitability of the lead bidder and his 44% co-investors, J&T, which could be one for the next government. The other is purely financial: is the Czech billionaire offering a fair price for International Distributions Services (IDS)? Is 370p a share any good?
IDS is recommending acceptance, but there is a weirdness here. The directors’ rejection of Křetínský’s opening shot at 320p in April was pitched in such strong terms that one assumed chair Keith Williams, a boardroom heavyweight not scared of a corporate ding-dong, was digging in to resist his 27% shareholder.
