Knight Vinke was not commenting yesterday as the activist investor added to its stake in Kesa Electricals, the owner of Comet.
The asset management group bought 3.32m shares in the retailer on November 19 ““ worth about £5.3m based on the company’s closing share price of 159.9p on the date of the transaction ““ taking its holding in the owner of Comet stores to 6.32pc
Analysts have speculated that bidders could pay up to 215p for each Kesa share if it is bought out.
The company is considered a likely target for a break-up because of the performance of its Darty division in France, which provides most of the company’s profits on less than half of its sales. However the performance of the core business in France is overshadowed by the group’s underperforming units in the UK and Spain.
With Comet continuing to lose ground to a resurgent Dixons and other competition it is a position that seems unlikely to change soon.
The suggestion being that Comet in the UK is dumped, Spain is also dropped and the Darty business becomes much stronger as a result.
No doubt this will fuel further rumours of a takeover of Comet by Best Buy which has been mooted for some months now.