Electricals retailer is worth more than US hedge fund Elliott’s offer and should look for close to £1bnCurrys shares soar as Chinese retailer enters takeover battleIt’s a long time since anybody described Currys, or Dixons as it was in a former incarnation, as a jewel of the London stock market. The electricals retailer was relegated from the FTSE 100 index as long ago as 2017, soon after its foolish value-destroying merger with Carphone Warehouse. These days it exists in that sub-£1bn category of under-analysed stocks that struggle to generate investor interest, at least from traditional funds that used to be the bedrock of the market.A takeover by private equity or an overseas predator has looked a possible plotline for a while, given how far the value has dropped from the £3.8bn at the time of the Carphone combo. There was no great shock in the news that the US hedge fund Elliott, a happy owner of the Waterstones bookshop chain, made an offer at the end of last week. The appearance of JD.com, one of China’s answers to Amazon, as a potential rival bidder is more surprising but, again, one can see the logic. Currys, despite it all, still generates annual revenues of almost £10bn and enjoys market-leading positions in the UK and Scandinavia, which is enough to get on to international radars. Continue reading…
