As a result, if you’d bought in at the 52-week low of £0.10 (18 cents) back at the end of June 2005, you’d have more than doubled your money by now, and even if you’d left it until almost all the newspaper tipsters included it in their New Year recommendations, you’d still be nearly 15 percent up.
Fire sale
That 12-month low coincided, perhaps unfairly, with the departure of chief executive Rick Haythornthwaite, who had masterminded a huge fire sale of assets and eventual refinancing, and his replacement by the lower-profile (and, some might say, more reassuring) figure of Ulf Henriksson. Haythornthwaite’s refinancing included a five-for-eight rights issue at £0.215 (38 cents). That’s the price the stock is currently hovering around, and analysts predict that if it successfully breaks through, it should go to £0.30 (52 cents).
Other factors driving it include Standard & Poor’s recent upgrading of Invensys’ bonds from “negative” to “stable,” and renewed speculation that the group might either be acquired or taken private. We’ve heard that before, with Siemens and Emerson most frequently named as potential predators, but Invensys’ reduced debt and pension fund deficit could now make it a more realistic prospect.
