We suggested at the time of TI Group Plc’s bid for Dowty Group Plc that Cray Electronics Holdings Plc would hang on and wait for TI to win the day before finalising negotiations to acquire Dowty’s information technology arm in the expectation that TI would be so keen to be shot of it quickly that the final deal would be more of a steal – and so it appears: according to the Daily Mail, the transaction with Cray was wrapped up for UKP50m, UKP10m of it likely in paper – despite there being a rival management buy-in offer led by former Lucas Industries Plc finance director David Hankinson offering UKP65m cash, backed by the British Coal Pension Fund – and CIN is said to have underwritten the offer on condition that a deal was completed by July 31; was TI really in that much of a hurry to be shot of the business?
