Tesco, Britain's biggest retailer, said today it has agreed to buy entrepreneur Tom Hunter out of Dobbies Garden Centres, ending a long-running battle for ownership.
Supermarket group Tesco, which already owns about 65.5 per cent of Britain's third-largest garden centre, said it has offered 1,200 pence per share in cash for the remaining shares, valuing the company at about £124.5 million ($243 million).
The offer is at a slight discount to Dobbies' 1,212-1/2 pence closing price last night and well below the 1,500 pence Tesco offered for Dobbies last year.
Tesco said Mr Hunter, who owns a 29.2 per cent blocking stake in Dobbies via West Coast Capital, had agreed to accept its offer, which will give Tesco 94.7 per cent of the company.
Mr Hunter, named as Scotland's richest man in the
Sunday TimesRich List, has long been a thorn in Tesco's side.
Earlier this month he failed in a legal attempt to block a planned rights issue, underwritten by Tesco, that would have diluted his stake in Dobbies and last year resisted Tesco's previous takeover offer.
West Coast Capital controls around 110 garden centres in Britain through Wyevale and the Blooms of Bressingham chain. Dobbies has a chain of 24 stores in Scotland and England.