A mid-sized speciality chemicals company little known outside its native USA has sent a big message to UK investors. By making a putative bid for Elementis (ELM), another chemicals specialist, New York-based Minerals Technologies (US:MTX) signalled a likely lift-off in takeover bids for special sorts of stock market laggards as economic life looks to revive.
That prospect should excite retail investors, especially those whose portfolios are groaning with what we might label ‘value’ stocks. But as they seek to identify possible bid targets, it is vital investors pose a different set of questions to the ones they ask when they say ‘are the shares cheap?’