Macquarie makes £266m swoop for building safety checks company

Macquarie, the £300 billion investor dubbed the Vampire kangaroo, snapped up a UK building safety firm set up by twins on Thursday for £266 million. The shares rose 140%.

Premier Technical, founded by brothers Paul and Roger Teasdale, has accepted Macquarie’s 210.1p-per-share bid, a 142% premium to the firm’s floundering share price.

Premier, based in West Yorkshire, offers building safety checks like fire alarm drills and sprinkler checks.

It has 20,000 customers and looks after around 180,000 UK buildings, including The Shard and Marks & Spencer stores.

Fire safety regulations have become increasingly in focus due to the Grenfell disaster in 2017 and the Notre Dame fire.

Macquarie, which has faced criticism for sucking dividends out of Thames Water, said Premier was well placed to take advantage of increasing building safety regulations.

Premier, founded in 2007, has clinched 15 takeovers since listing on the junior market four years ago.