Mitie (LSE: MTO) closed up 39.07% at 210.0p on Tuesday — an all-time high — after agreeing to a £3.1bn ($4.17bn) cash takeover by rival UK outsourcer OCS Group, which is owned by US private equity firm Clayton, Dubilier & Rice. It hit 214p intraday.

The actual number that matters

OCS is paying 218.5p a share in cash, plus a final dividend of up to 3.1p — 221.6p all-in. That's a 46.8% premium to Monday's close, per Reuters. Mitie's board unanimously recommended it and has already locked in acceptances covering 1.2% of shares, with Oasis Management committing a further 9.9% held via swaps. The £100m buyback launched last October — 49m shares repurchased for £81m so far — was suspended on the spot.

Why a cleaning company got a 47% premium

Because it isn't really a cleaning company any more. Buried in the same-day trading update: quarterly revenue rose 10% to £1.41bn (from £1.28bn), with Business Services up 23% while Technical Services fell 5%. Contract wins and renewals hit £1.6bn, up 33% year on year, and the bidding pipeline is a record £32.5bn versus £31.7bn a year ago. Mitie counts Microsoft and Google as clients and installs the mechanical, electrical, cooling and security systems inside hyperscaler data centres — plus engineering work at AstraZeneca's global research hub. CD&R isn't buying a mop business; it's buying the contractor that keeps AI infrastructure cool and powered, at a support-services multiple.

Reuters reports talks started before June and were partly accelerated by CEO Phil Bentley's planned retirement — he'd intended to go by March 2027 and will now stay through completion.

The ripple

This is London's de-equitisation problem in one trade: a profitable FTSE-250 company with a record pipeline gets bought at a 47% premium because it was cheap in sterling. The read-through lands on the same day Segro is publicly fighting off a Prologis bid, with Prologis calling Segro's defence assumptions "unrealistic". Panmure Liberum's Joe Brent said the Mitie deal is likely to succeed with a small chance of a rival bid — meaning the remaining listed UK support-services names (Serco most obviously) now trade with a bid premium baked in that has nothing to do with their own earnings.

The risk that flips it

Mitie closed at 210.0p against a 221.6p offer — a 5.5% spread. That gap is the market pricing deal risk plus the wait to a Q1 2027 completion via a Scottish court-sanctioned scheme, which needs 75% shareholder approval. Watch the price against 221.6p: pushing above it means traders are betting on a counterbid; the spread widening past ~6-7% means someone thinks the scheme is in trouble. Either way, holders are now trading a deal timetable, not a business.

As of 21 Jul 2026, 19:00 BST. Sources: Reuters via London South East, Alliance News via AJ Bell. For discussion and education only — not investment advice. Verify before acting.