London takeover bids are drawing shareholder resistance this year, with investors increasingly willing to reject opening offers and push boards to negotiate higher prices. Reuters and company disclosures show the pattern repeating across FTSE 100 names including Segro and Intertek, where bidders returned multiple times before winning board approval.
Retail investment firm AJ Bell estimates the total value of live or completed bids will reach £69.3bn by the end of 2026. The average acquisition premium relative to target share prices has hit 45% this year, according to AJ Bell data.
London Takeover Bids: When Shareholders Win
The clearest example of investor muscle came at Segro. US logistics giant Prologis made three approaches before reaching agreed terms. Reuters reported that Prologis made public a £12.6bn proposal on 24 June 2026 after Segro rejected the approach, giving Prologis a deadline of 22 July 2026 under British takeover rules to table a formal bid or walk away.
It came back. Prologis announced on 4 August 2026 that it had agreed final terms to acquire Segro at an implied value of approximately $18.8bn, structured principally as a share exchange with a partial cash alternative, expected to close in the first half of 2027 subject to regulatory and court approvals. Major institutional shareholders, including APG Asset Management and Norges Bank, had actively urged the Segro board to engage with Prologis and accept a higher offer.
Henrik Persson, head of public M&A at Cavendish, said: ‘Investors have become much more willing to be vocal in takeover situations. Partly that is about influencing the outcome, but it is also about demonstrating…that they are active owners rather than passive observers.’
He added: ‘Recent situations…have emboldened shareholders that saying “no” works. Once investors have seen bidders repeatedly come back with more, it becomes harder to persuade them that the opening bid is the best bid.’
Intertek followed a similar pattern. Swedish private equity firm EQT submitted its first indicative proposal on 10 April 2026 at £51.50 per share, which Intertek’s board unanimously rejected on 13 April 2026 as ‘fundamentally undervaluing Intertek and its future prospects,’ according to Yahoo Finance citing EQT’s disclosure.
EQT raised its bid to £54 per share, then to £58 per share. At the £58 level, the offer represented a 54% premium to Intertek’s closing price the day before EQT’s approach became public. The board indicated it was ‘minded to recommend’ a final offer of £60 per share, with Intertek granting EQT an extended deadline until 18 June 2026 to submit a formal offer under Rule 2.7 of the Takeover Code. The final agreed deal valued Intertek at £10.6bn. Activist investor Palliser Capital had urged the company to engage with EQT, describing the deal as ‘an attractive opportunity for shareholders.’
Since 2023, there have been 154 bids for UK companies with a market value above £100m, erasing around £165bn of market capitalisation from the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said: ‘Any takeover bid…brings together the desire of the buyer to pay as little as possible, to protect their downside and maximise their upside. Most shareholder push-back on any deal will therefore relate to the price, and implied valuation, on offer.’
When the Board Accepts Anyway
Shareholder pressure does not always prevail. DCC Energy agreed to a takeover worth around £5.7bn by KKR and Energy Capital Partners at the end of July, after the board unanimously recommended the offer despite fierce opposition.
Founder Jim Flavin said he was ‘astounded’ by the offer. Pension investors Aviva and Fidelity said it did not benefit their clients and amounted to a ‘bad outcome’ for shareholders. Other shareholders, including Man Group and Allianz, declined to comment ahead of a shareholder vote scheduled for September.
Fidelity Sharecast reported the DCC Energy board unanimously recommended shareholders back the cash deal.
Persson said there was growing ‘public discourse’ around bids, with the market now more comfortable with shareholders airing concerns publicly. ‘I do not think any of this will reduce takeover activity. Deals will still get done because the opportunities are still there,’ he said. ‘Public scrutiny, shareholder activism and bidding contests are increasingly part of the process rather than a reason for transactions not to happen.’
The DCC shareholder vote in September will be the next test of whether that dynamic holds when a board and its largest investors disagree.
