Shares in Aegis still riding high after bid talk

by Staff, Brand Republic 08-Feb-08, 09:10

LONDON - Shares in Aegis remained buoyant this morning, close to their three-month high, after leaping 5.5% yesterday on talk of a possible bid by largest shareholder Vincent Bollore.

Yesterday, Aegis shares rose as much as 6p, or 5.5%, to 117.75p before falling back slightly to 115.25p.

The figure is close to the three-month high of 118p the shares were trading at in November, but way off the 152p they hit a year ago.

The shares jumped following Campaign's front page story that Vincent Bollore was planning to make a bid.

Campaign reported that the Havas chairman had this week been preparing to make a bid to take over Aegis, in which he already has a 29.9% stake.

So confident is the Frenchman that he has been asking senior managers at Havas to look at how Aegis, which owns media agency Carat and market research firm Synovate, might be integrated.

Bollore has previously tried several times to have his representatives appointed to the Aegis board but the company has strongly resisted and beaten back numerous approaches.

A report by Reuters following up the Campaign story quoted an unnamed source describing talk of a bid as speculative, but made no denial.