Bob Diamond joins bid for stockbroker Panmure Gordon

Former Barclays chief executive Bob Diamond has launched a joint takeover bid for City stockbroker Panmure Gordon.

Bob Diamond is bidding to take Panmure Gordon private. Picture: Nick Potts/PA Wire

Diamond is making the bid through his private equity firm Atlas Merchant Capital, alongside Qatari bank QInvest, which holds about 43 per cent of Panmure.

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The deal, for 100p a share, values Panmure at £15.5 million and represents a 68 per cent premium. Panmure’s board has recommended the offer to shareholders who will vote on the deal.

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Panmure said its independent directors “unanimously consider the cash consideration to be fair and reasonable” and that it already has the backing of 60 per cent of investors.

Once complete, the deal will see Panmure, one of the country’s oldest stockbrokers, delisted from the London market and taken private.

The move marks a comeback for Diamond, who quit Barclays after the bank’s £290 million Libor-rigging settlement in 2012.

Diamond was regarded at the time as a brash American investment banker, once described by Lord Mandelson as the “unacceptable face of banking” due to his lavish pay deals – a tag that ended up tarnishing Barclays as it became embroiled in the Libor sandal.