Tottenham Hotspur, the quoted Premier League football club, has fallen under the firm control of Daniel Levy, its main board chairman and his business partner Joe Lewis, the billionaire currency trader based in the Bahamas.
Enic International, the leisure group owned by the families of Mr Levy and Mr Lewis, last month bought out a holding in the club belonging to Amshold, the property vehicle of Sir Alan Sugar. This raised Enic’s holding to 66 per cent assuming it converted a chunk of preference shares.
Enic then made an offer for the rest of Spurs. Yesterday, Enic went unconditional on its offer after more shareholders sold out, leaving Enic with a direct holding of nearly 58 per cent of the club’s ordinary shares that will rise to 74 per cent if the company converts its larger base of preference stock.
Tottenham held steady at 113½p. Tri-corn Partners advised the board.
Brokers at KBC Peel Hunt have marked Ultimate Leisure as a recovery story in the bars and hotels market and slapped a 300p price target on the stock. Ultimate held steady at 241½p.
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The first day of trading on AIM for Maple Energy, a Peruvian-based oil and gas explorer, saw its shares rise to 99p after a placing that raised £22.4 million priced at 84p per share.
Maple is also planning a $180 million (£89 million) Ethanol fuel programme derived from sugar cane plantations covering about 8,000 acres in the South American country.
In the alternative fuel sector Renewable Power & Light suffered a 64 per cent slide in its share price, down 74p to 40½p, as it returned from suspension and warned of a full-year loss. Renewable blamed a lack of feedstock supply at contract prices. It is taking legal action in America against Safari Group, its main supplier of palm oil.
The sell-off in Antisoma has been overdone according to ING, which is keeping a “buy” rating on the drug development company despite cutting its price target from 65p to 63p. Antisoma shares rose 1½p, nearly 5 per cent, to 38¾p. Medic Vision, the medical supply firm, rose 1½p to 11¾p, after saying it was pleased with performance.