US group Advent International ‘preparing bid for Tate & Lyle’

Tate & Lyle could become the next UK company to fall to an overseas takeover offer, following reports that US private equity firm Advent International is preparing a bid for the group.

Shares in Tate & Lyle, which makes ingredients such as artificial sweeteners, jumped as much as 13% on Wednesday after the Financial Times reported that Advent was in “the early stages” of preparing a bid.

If an offer comes, it would value London-headquartered Tate & Lyle above its market value of £2.8bn before Advent’s interest emerged, the FT said. The company was valued at more than £3bn after Wednesday’s surge in the share price.

Several other London-listed companies have already fallen to foreign buyers this year. Packaging company DS Smith was acquired by rival International Paper, cybersecurity firm Darktrace bought by Thoma Bravo, and door and window components-maker Tyman snapped up by US rival Quanex.

Advent, headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, has made UK acquisitions before. It acquired British defence company Cobham in early 2020, and owned parcel group Evri (formerly Hermes) from 2020 until this year, when it sold it to Apollo Global Management.

Advent’s interest comes as Tate & Lyle tries to tie up its own takeover. In June it agreed to buy US-based CP Kelco for $1.8bn ($1.4bn), to add to its speciality ingredients business and target demand for plant-based products. The deal was expected to close by the end of this year.

Tate & Lyle, which now produces sweeteners and starches for use in beverages, dairy products, bakery goods and soups, was created in 1921 by the merger of two rival sugar refiners, Henry Tate & Sons and Abram Lyle & Sons. It can trace its history back to 1859, when Tate formed a partnership in Liverpool.

In 2010 it sold its historic sugar business to American Sugar Refining (ASR) for £211m.

Advent and Tate & Lyle declined to comment to the FT.