Rightmove to attract more takeover offers, City analysts predict
AJ Bell analyst says REA Group's failed bids to buy Rightmove will have alerted other investors with "deeper pockets" to the potential value of making offers for the UK's largest portal.
Rightmove could attract more takeover offers following Australian giant REA Group’s failed bid to buy the UK’s biggest portal.
Analysts are now saying investors will be looking at Rightmove more closely based on REA’s interest in buying the company.
Failed offers
After four failed cash and shares offers for Rightmove and a war of words between the two parties, REA finally withdrew on Monday.
Rightmove only offered “limited engagement” REA said, but the Rightmove board accused the Aussie portal firm of undervaluing the company and being opportunistic.
REA Group, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, appeared to rule out a hostile takeover as this would mean paying over the odds.
It needed a knock ‘em out the park premium-priced bid to win over the company.”

Dan Coatsworth, Investment Analyst at AJ Bell, told City AM: “The past month’s bid action has put the stock on more investors’ radar” and a “greater number of investors will now be looking closer to see why REA was so desperate to buy it”.
“[REA] was never going to win with a stingy cash-and-shares offer… It needed a knock ‘em out the park premium-priced bid to win over the company and its shareholders, and that didn’t materialise,” he said.
Deeper pockets
And Kathleen Brooks, Analyst at XTB, said Rightmove has held onto its takeover premium, suggesting investors expect another suitor to come along “with deeper pockets than REA group”.
Rightmove’s shares traded at approximately £5.70p per share prior to the REA Group intervention, and it initially jumped to £7.08, but has settled back at around £6.35p.