The three private equity firms circling with a joint £5.4 billion takeover of Hargreaves Lansdown have secured more time to agree a deal for Britain’s biggest DIY investment platform.
The bidders, which include CVC Capital Partners, had faced a deadline of 5pm today to make a firm bid or walk away from the FTSE 100 company.
However, Hargreaves said that talks with its suitors were continuing and that it had secured a deadline extension from the Takeover Panel, which regulates mergers and acquisition activity in Britain, for further discussions. The bidding consortium now has until August 5 to strike a deal.
It emerged in May that CVC, Nordic Capital and a private equity subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority had approached Hargreaves the previous