James Hanbury blasts Hargreaves Lansdown for backing £5.4bn PE bid

Undervaluation and conflicts of interest

Lancaster Investment Management portfolio manager James Hanbury and analyst James Spalton have penned an open letter to Hargreaves Lansdown chair Alison Platt to criticise the platform’s support of the £5.4bn bid received by a private equity consortium.

Last week, a PE consortium led by CVC Capital Partners made a second offer to acquire HL and take it private for 1,140p per share – which included a final dividend and an "equity rollover option" for shareholders to remain invested in the company post-acquisition. Hargreaves Lansdown receives second bid from PE consortium for £5.4bn However, Hanbury and Spalton, who joined Lancaster from Odey Asset Management subsidiary Brook Asset Management, set out several issues with the bid itself, as well as with HL's backing of the offer and its recommendation to shareholders to support it. ...