VT offers £230m to investors, reports

21st Feb 2010 14:54

VT Group has reportedly offered a bumper payout to its shareholders in an attempt to fight off rival Babcock International's takeover bid. The Independent on Sunday writes that the support services firm has offered to return £230m in the form of a special dividend to shareholders.The paper quotes unnamed industry sources as saying that VT's chief executive, Paul Lester, has taken his defence to big shareholders last week.The report comes after VT Group rejected a second takeover proposal from rival Babcock International on Thursday. VT described the revised proposal, which was between 680p and 715p a VT share, as 'only a small improvement on Babcock's previous indicative offer. Like the first proposal, it would be funded by 0.701 Babcock shares plus cash. The first proposal was worth 633.9p a share. The cash component of the first proposal comprised 126.3p in cash from VT's sale of its shipbuilding business plus an additional 119.2p, making a total of 245.5p in cash. VT itself has made a takeover proposal to fellow outsourcing specialist Mouchel. News of Babcock's first offer for VT came on Monday, the same day VT raised its offer for Mouchel by about 15% to 294p per share.