Postman Pat 'close to Chorion deal'

POSTMAN Pat's parent company,

Entertainment Rights is thought to be drawing up an offer that would value Chorion at up to a third above Friday's closing share price, which was down slightly on the week at 206 1/2p. Chorion, which also owns the rights to Agatha Christie's fictional sleuths Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot, has a stock market value of £35.6 million.

Entertainment Rights, which also owns Basil Brush, has been stalking Chorion for more than a year and is worth slightly less at £33.5 million. Its shares closed down slightly last week at 12 3/4p.

The Takeover Panel intervened in December to tell Entertainment Rights that it had to make an offer for Chorion by February 4 or wait at least a further six months before making a new bid approach. The Panel's intervention came after Chorion's chairman, Lord Alli, said a previous approach from Entertainment Rights undervalued the firm. That offer is believed to have been a mixture of cash and shares.

Entertainment Rights has made a series of approaches for Chorion. It signed an agreement with the company at the start of last year preventing it from bidding for the company before this Tuesday.

Chorion, meanwhile, has said it is in exclusive talks to buy the Mr Men characters from the private Hargreaves organisation for about £25 million. That deal was put on hold by the Takeover Panel ruling-which means the company can only go ahead with it after consulting shareholders.

Chorion would almost certainly become too big for Entertainment Rights to swallow if it acquired the Mr Men characters, so investors will have to decide if their company is better served by the Mr Men deal or by being taken over.