Carpetright shares have shot up following reports that founder Lord Harris is planning to take the retailer private.
Harris, who owns 18.8% of the flooring specialist, is ready to take the retailer off the stock market at 700p per share, or £469m, according to The Daily Mail’s market report.
The retailer’s share price, which closed at 578p last night, jumped 17p to 595p this morning.
Carpetright has had a difficult time of late, with six profit warnings over the past year, as hard-hit homeowners have shied away from big ticket buys.
City analysts have slashed full year profit forecasts to £11m from £16.9m last year.
In 2007, Harris failed in an attempt to take it private at 1250p a share. He wanted then to move away from public ownership in order to expand more quickly.
The newspaper reported that Harris’ intention remains the same and he was been sounding out major shareholders about the possibility of doing a deal.
Singer analyst Matthew McEachran said: “We would be surprised by such a move given the experience back in 2007 and given that the share price has held up well at a time when forecasts have been downgraded significantly.”
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