A private equity group today looked set to take over pub firm Yates after increasing its offer for the business to about £98.4 million.

Thorium, a bid vehicle set up by GI Partners, said it had agreed a deal with Yates' independent directors to offer 147p per share for the group.

The new bid is £5.4 million higher than Thorium's previous 140p per share offer and represents a premium of about 12.2% to Yates' share price of 131p last Thursday.

Crucially, Thorium said it had secured the backing of previously dissatisfied family founding shareholders in Yates who control 20.4% of the shares, giving it effective control over just under 54% of the company.

Thorium, which raised its bid following pressure from the family investors last week, now needs acceptances representing 90% of the shares for its offer to become unconditional - forcing other minority shareholders to sell up.

Wednesday July 28, 2004