Takeover of car dealer group Lookers gets go ahead from shareholders

Shareholders in Lookers voted on the 130p per share takeover offer by Global Auto Holdings this week and a huge majority gave it their backing.

The offer was approved by investors accounting for 91% of Lookers share, meaning that publicly-listed Lookers could be taken private by the end of the year, subject to approval by regulatory bodies and other conditions.

Its buyer, Global Auto Holdings, is owned by Kuldeep Billan, founder and executive chairman of Alpha Auto Group, a motor retail group in Canada. 

Its inital offer of 120p per share was raised to 130p in July after pushback from Lookers' stakeholder Cinch.

When he first revealed his interest in Lookers, Billan said: “The proposed acquisition of Lookers represents a compelling opportunity to acquire one of the leading UK auto retail groups while partnering with fantastic OEM brands  and Lookers’ approximately 6,500 strong team members. We look forward to further  building upon Lookers’ strong original equipment manufacturer (OEM) relationships by being a trusted and reliable retail  partner while delivering strong volumes and a high level of customer experience across  a range of OEM ‘go to market’ strategies."

Lookers said the new offer from Global Auto Holdings represented an increase of 8.3% to the previous recommended offer of 120p per Lookers share announced on  June 20.

The dealer group's board had accepted the initial offer of £465.4m in June, with Mark Raban, Lookers chief executive, saying the offer would "create a business of greater scale to create a platform for future growth in the UK".