Sagentia switches from tender to buy-back

It did look a little bit like wishful thinking when Sagentia, the outsourced R&D venture chaired by Microgen chairman – and more recently, RM chairman – Martyn Ratcliffe, announced a Tender Offer for the company’s shares at 13% below the market price (see Sagentia – ‘very satisfactory’ year despite tougher H2) and now it appears they’ve had second thoughts. Instead, Sagentia will switch to a bog-standard buy-back programme, for up to 15% of the issued capital. Sagentia’s shares had been trading above the 80p Tender Offer price since November having gained over 30% in the past 12 months.