Another quiet morning for grocery and retail in the papers as the summer season gets into full swing. The Telegraph reports that SABMiller directors will discuss mounting frustration among some of its shareholders with the terms of its £77bn takeover by rival AB InBev ahead of tomorrow’s AGM. It is thought that increasing investor pressure for SAB to seek a higher cash offer will be a topic of discussion, the paper writes. There is a possibility the AGM will see some shareholders speak out against the takeover amid growing anger that the terms increasingly favour the brewer’s two biggest investors, tobacco firm Altria and the Colombia’s Santo Domingo family.
Monsanto has rejected Bayer’s second takeover approach, claiming the $64bn cash offer was too low, in a fresh setback to the German group’s ambition to create the world’s largest agrochemicals group (The Financial Times). The GM seeds group said the board unanimously agreed that Bayer’s revised $125-a-share proposal was “financially inadequate and insufficient to ensure deal certainty”. The Times writes: “No means maybe as Monsanto rejects Bayer’s takeover offer.” The headline springs from comments in the statement from Monsanto which said the group “remains open to continued and constructive conversations with Bayer and other parties”.
On the wider retail beat there is more bad news for the high street as The Guardian writes that lossmaking fashion chain Store Twenty One is to axe hundreds of jobs as it shuts nearly 80 shops after agreeing a rescue deal with landlords to avoid administration.
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