A flurry of takeover activity was seen this week, with two of the three deals led by bargain hunters targeting the lower reaches of the stock market.
AIM-listed Gooch & Housego PLC (AIM:GHH), maker of precision optics, succumbed to private equity raiders in a £346 million deal, while pawnbroker Ramsdens Holdings PLC (AIM:RFX) is being taken out by an American rival for £230 million.
As one sharp-eyed City commentator noted, bidders were able to pay 40-50% more than the shares were worth before the bid came in and still feel they weren't being fleeced.
Why? Quite simply, real businesses in the UK, particularly with deep defence moats (Gooch), or, in the case of Ramsdens backed by gold (jewellery), have been seriously underpriced.
And at the lower reaches of the market, the discount to fair value is steep and reflective of a UK investment community that would rather chase the allure of American AI (which is shaping up to be the next big financial crisis) than invest in engineering excellence or asset-backed solidity at home.
For sale sign
Symptomatic of this trend is the renewables sector, where scores of companies are valued at discounts of upwards of 30% to the solar or wind assets they own.
Now, there are aggravating factors, such as higher bond yields and debt costs, and a changing regulatory landscape.
Fed up with the status quo, and the 40% discount to NAV, NextEnergy Solar has put itself up for sale, perhaps buoyed by power group Drax's £548 million swoop for rival Bluefield Solar. NextEnergy rose 10%.
Turning to the wider market, the AIM All-Share retreated 0.6% to 759.3, and is down 6% over the last 30 days. Its benchmark, the FTSE 100, rose 0.5%.
Sticking with the gainers, Ironveld PLC (AIM:IRON), the mine developer, advanced 33% after it provided an upbeat production update.
Trading boost
Not far behind with a 32% gain was Itaconix PLC (AIM:ITX, OTCQB:ITXXF, FRA:18G0), which secured the first customer supply agreement and, in a separate announcement on Friday, upgraded its outlook for the current year.
The political pages appear to have been the driver of a 31% surge in the share price of Jersey Oil and Gas PLC (AIM:JOG, OTC:JYOGF). Specifically, Bloomberg was reporting that newly anointed Prime Minister Andy Burnham will back North Sea drilling.
That could radically change the fortunes of the junior oiler, which owns a slug of the Greater Buchan Area, 71 miles off the coast of Aberdeenshire. The project has been moribund since the appointment of Ed Miliband as energy secretary.
Fellow North Sea stocks Orcadian (up 30%) and Buccaneer (15% higher) were also well bid.
Would-be bidder checks out
Onto the fallers. Safestay (AIM:SSTY) dropped 50% after Infill Capital Partners said it wouldn't make an offer to buy the hostels and hotels group.
Galileo Resources PLC (AIM:GLR) shares dropped 28% after its two small-scale mining licences for the Luansobe copper project disappeared from Zambia's mining cadastre portal. Local partner Statunga has lodged a complaint and begun legal action, including an injunction against Mopani Copper Mines.
Finally, Iofina PLC (AIM:IOF, OTC:IOFNF) has been quietly going about its business, as its latest trading update revealed earlier this week.
The specialist iodine producer extracts the chemical from brine water produced during the oil drilling process in the US.
It produced 393.3 metric tonnes in the first half of 2026, a record, and 8.3 tonnes more than the guidance it had already raised once.
Guidance of 460 to 485 tonnes for the remainder of the year implies a step change rather than a grind higher, and it rests on two plants.
The shares were little changed on the week, but are up 114% in the year to date as the business has quietly performed.
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