4:03 pm, May 11, 2022
Constellation Automotive Group has finally received the green light to takeover Marshall Motor Holdings.
The BCA and Cinch owner was waiting for regulatory approvals from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), but these have now been ‘satisfied’.
In an announcement to the London Stock Exchange this afternoon, Constellation said the timetable to takeover Marshall Motor Holdings had been put on hold on January 20, 2022, after the FCA expressed it wasn’t satisfied for the deal to go ahead.
Along with the FCA conditions being satisfied, Constellation has also received ‘sufficient acceptances to satisfy the Acceptance Condition’, meaning its offer is now ‘unconditional’.
The deal sees Constellation splash out £325m for Marshall Motor Holdings.
It marks the next step in a process that was first made public in November 2021.
In December 2021, Constellation published detailed documents saying it would undertake a review to determine how ‘short and long-term objectives can be delivered’.
At the time, the company said the review would include looking into the existing ‘organisational structure’, but it said it had ‘no intention’ of making any changes to conditions of employment.
It is still not known if Marshall Motor Holdings CEO Daksh Gupta will continue in his role.
News of the deal caused shockwaves through the industry, mostly because of how quickly it had been tabled.
On November 26, 2021, a late announcement on the London Stock Exchange said Marshall’s board had been made aware of by the Takeover Panel of speculation about the company.
Just three days later talks were happening between Constellation and the Marshall family, a deal was effectively sealed.
Later, the documents published by Constellation revealed Marshall Motor Group’s board of directors, including Gupta, were completely unaware of the dealer group’s biggest shareholder, Marshall of Cambridge (Holdings) Ltd, was considering a sale.
