Lord Ashcroft bought shares in Mitie on day it made offer for firm he founded
Lord Ashcroft bought shares in Mitie on the same day it unveiled £370m takeover talks for a business he co-founded, City AM can reveal.
The peer and Tory grandee spent £1m acquiring 714,600 shares in the facilities management company on Thursday 5 June, company filings show, the day the firm confirmed it was in talks to acquire regulatory compliance business Marlowe, a highly unusual move.
Ashcroft is the largest shareholder in Marlowe, with a 18.9 per cent stake, and stands to gain as much as £44m in cash and £23m in Mitie shares if the deal goes ahead, building a stake in Mitie of over 1 per cent.
Ashcroft did not respond to a request for comment.
FTSE 250 firm Mitie said the takeover of the AIM-listed testing and inspection group would deliver £30m of cost synergies.
“Adding Marlowe’s 3,000 highly respected colleagues to Mitie’s capabilities and providing access to Mitie’s clients will generate significant revenue growth opportunities as well as immediate cost efficiencies,” said Mitie CEO Phil Bentley.
Mitie’s results
Operating profit reached £162m in Mitie’s full-year results to March 31, down slightly from £166m the year before due to a spike in acquisition-related costs and the consolidation of joint venture Landmarc.
The group’s total order book reached a record £15.4bn, up 35 per cent from the year before. However, renewals dropped to 59 per cent from 79 per cent, reflecting the loss of two public sector contracts.
Mitie also cut its estimate of the annual cost increase from the hike in Employer’s National Insurance Contributions from £60m to £50m, and said contractual recoveries from customers are expected to be at least £35m throughout the next year.
The group’s stock price jumped 27 per cent throughout April after announcing a new £125m stock buyback programme, after completing a £100m programme throughout the previous year.
“2025 was a year of good financial and operational progress for Mitie, as we embarked on our new Three-Year Plan for Facilities Transformation,” said Bentley.
“The investments we made in the foundation year of our Plan contributed to the delivery of double-digit revenue and operating profit growth, alongside a return on invested capital that significantly exceeds our weighted average cost of capital.”