BPI has successfully fought off Macfarlane Groups hostile bid, persuading its shareholders to reject the 310p-a-share offer after a frantic race to round up support.


I am just relieved that we can now get on with doing the job that we were planning to do, said BPI chairman Cameron McLatchie.


Macfarlane had managed to secure just over 35% of acceptances for its offer, but BPI managed to secure the support of its two major shareholders, UBS Asset Management and 3i.


UBS and 3i between them own a 17% stake, with BPI also gaining the support of over 20% of its private shareholders, which in total own a 24% holding.


The shareholders were obviously persuaded that there was more value in our offer than Macfarlanes, said McLatchie.


Macfarlane chief executive Iain Duffin said he was very confident going into the last week that we had done enough.


I have to assume the shareholders that voted against us feel there is a way for them to achieve more value than from our offer.


As the largest shareholder in BPI obviously we are very interested as to where this value will come from, said Duffin.


BPI will now go ahead with buying back about 30% of its shares for 35.4m through a 320p-per-share tender offer it made as part of its defence.


It plans to put the tender offer document out as soon as possible, and said that shareholders would have their money from the buy-back by the end of January.


The result ends a bitter three months of wrangling between the two parties following Macfarlanes 92.3m bid in September.


Story by Andy Scott