The London Stock Exchange exodus has passed $110bn in deal value this year, as three further companies agreed to leave public markets on Tuesday in transactions spanning industrial heat treatment, telecoms and North Sea energy.
Veritas Beats CVC for Bodycote at 940p a Share
The day’s largest deal was the London Stock Exchange RNS-confirmed recommended cash acquisition of Bodycote, the FTSE 250 heat treatment and metal-joining group listed on the exchange since 1972. US private equity firm Veritas Capital prevailed over rival bidder CVC Advisers, agreeing 940 pence per share: 932.8 pence in cash plus a 7.2 pence interim dividend.
That price represents a 34.5% premium to Bodycote’s closing price before takeover speculation first surfaced in May, according to Reuters via Euronext. Veritas and CVC had both submitted indicative proposals in early August at approximately 914p to 915p, making the final 940p offer a meaningful step up from both camps’ opening positions.
The deal values Bodycote’s equity at approximately £1.65 billion and the enterprise at around £1.85 billion including debt, per Yahoo Finance. The headline deal figure cited in the announcement is £1.84bn. Bodycote shares briefly touched an intraday high of 957p on deal day, above the agreed acquisition price, a level the stock had not seen since September 2021.
Veritas manages around $54 billion in assets and has completed more than 145 acquisitions since its founding in 1992. The firm specifically cited Bodycote’s exposure to aerospace, defence and performance industrial markets as fitting alongside its existing portfolio, which includes aeroengine technology company Chromalloy. The offer period opened on 5 August 2026, with the UK Takeover Panel having set a Rule 2.6 deadline of 17:00 on 2 September for Veritas and CVC each to either commit or stand down.
Veritas’s own framing of why Bodycote needs to go private was familiar: ‘As a private company under Veritas’ ownership, Bodycote will benefit from enhanced flexibility and long-term perspective to support continued investment in the business and pursue targeted organic and inorganic growth opportunities.’ You will hear that sentence, or close variants of it, in roughly half the London delistings announced this year. That it is repeated so often does not make it untrue. It does, however, suggest the public markets are struggling to offer a competitive alternative.
The London Stock Exchange Exodus: Gamma and Capricorn Complete a Bleak Tuesday
Gamma Communications, the telecoms group, recommended a £1.1bn offer from UK private equity firm Epiris, days after acknowledging it was in possible talks with European buyout firm Waterland. Epiris first flagged its interest in June. Its stated rationale: ‘The additional flexibility that comes from a private company environment will enable Gamma to invest further and focus on sustainably improving the growth of its business over the long term.’ Different words; same argument.
Scottish energy company Capricorn, meanwhile, agreed to end 38 years on the FTSE All-Share by accepting a $396 million offer from Norwegian rival DNO, switching its recommendation from an earlier Genel Energy bid. The deal values Capricorn at $5.214 per share: $4.224 in cash plus a $0.990 special dividend Capricorn will declare before completion, according to Yahoo Finance. That compares with Genel’s prior offer of $4.74 per share, which had valued Capricorn at $360 million. DNO’s winning bid represents a premium of around 10% to the Genel proposal’s implied value, per Offshore Technology.
Capricorn shares had risen approximately 46% since bid interest first emerged in March. Canaccord Genuity is advising Capricorn on the deal. Completion is conditional on shareholder approval and sign-off from relevant authorities including the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation, given Capricorn’s core operations in Egypt’s Western Desert.
Tuesday’s three departures sit alongside a year already scarred by the exits of easyJet (£5.7bn, Apollo), Segro (£14bn, Prologis), Schroders (£9.9bn), Intertek (£10bn, EQT) and Beazley (£8bn, Zurich). Total deal value removing companies from the exchange has now reached almost $110bn, according to Bloomberg data.
I find it hard to argue that any individual deal on Tuesday was the wrong outcome for shareholders. Bodycote’s 34.5% premium, Capricorn’s competitive auction, Gamma’s settled recommendation: each looks defensible in isolation. The problem is the accumulation. At some point the question stops being whether private equity is right about each company and becomes whether London can continue to function as a market at all if this pace holds through 2027.
