Paris-based think tank upgrades UK’s growth forecast for this year to faster than Japan, Italy and Germany

Back to Rightmove’s rejection of the third takeover offer from Rupert Murdoch’s REA Group, worth £6.1bn, as too low.

Susannah Streeter, head of money and markets at Hargreaves Lansdown, said:

Rightmove is playing hard to get and Rupert Murdoch’s REA Group is going to have to up its game again if it has a chance of winning over the board to accept a takeover offer. The bids so far have been rejected out of hand, and even the improved latest offer is considered to materially undervalue the company and its future prospects.

With the UK government pledging to build 1.5m new homes, interest rate cuts eyed and the property market springing into life again, Rightmove clearly sees significant growth opportunities ahead.

It’s hard to see why 759p is a good enough offer to ignore that potential plus the business’ growth prospects thereon out. On top of which, the structure of the offer is overly complicated – with 55% of it in scrip, which we expect many funds would choose to sell in the event of a deal, thereby complicating the realisation of value by investors.

As a result, we continue to see a low likelihood that a successful deal can be closed, in the absence of some creativity on REA’s part to increase its bid.