Reverse Takeover

Porky500

With all the turbulence in the housing market, i recently decided to invest in some shares to spread my risk. Acouple of weeks ago, I bought some shares in Darwen Holdings (a recently AIM-listed bus manufacturer). On 1st May, it was announced that it's shares were suspended pending a reverse takeover of Optare. Can anyone tell me what effect this will have on my investment?

withabix

This is a merger of two (presumably) healthy businesses. The smaller Darwen is taking over the larger Optare and is renaming the resulting company Optare, as their name is well known in the sector.

Optare was apparently worth £60m
Darwen was apparently worh £20m

Your shares will be converted into shares in the 'new' Optare company on a pro-rata basis.

Porky500

Thanks, Withabix. Any idea if it's good news for Darwen shareholders? Am I likely to make money or lose money?

RichyRich

Darwen wouldn't (shouldn't?) have bought Optare if they didn't think it was in the best interests of its shareholders.

Optare is a well respected bus manufacturer with four sites in the UK. Their best known bus is probably the Solo, which is pretty much the only new minibus that any bus operators in this country buy (for a picture of one, see here). They also make larger buses and coaches, all on an integral basis (i.e. they make both the chassis and the bodywork, in contrast to the traditional bus building system whereby the chassis is made by one company, e.g. Volvo, and the body by another, e.g. Alexander). Optare have been going years, and came out of the West Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive privatisation - before WYPTE the company was known as Charles H. Roe.

As for financials, I couldn't tell you, but Optare is certainly well known and highly regarded in the bus industry.

Rich

Porky500

Thanks RichyRich. I hope that once the suspension is over, everyone sees this as a good opportunity to support both the environment and british manufacturing and pours their money into these shares! Here's hoping

purch

Optare is a well respected bus manufacturer with four sites in the UK. Their best known bus is probably the Solo, which is pretty much the only new minibus that any bus operators in this country buy

Where did you 'cut n paste' that stuff from ??

A friend of mine is a director of a local Bus company. They have quite a few Optare Solo's and Versa's which have been nothing but trouble, due to their poor build quaility. They won't be buying anymore.

RichyRich

purch wrote: »

Where did you 'cut n paste' that stuff from ??

A friend of mine is a director of a local Bus company. They have quite a few Optare Solo's and Versa's which have been nothing but trouble, due to their poor build quaility. They won't be buying anymore.

I did not cut and paste that from anywhere. I wrote it. I'm a manager at a bus company.