Chemring gives Carlyle a bit more time

Defence contractor Chemring has pushed back the deadline for The Carlyle Group to make an offer, after not receiving word the US asset management group.

Carlyle previously had until 17:00 today (September 14th) to announce a firm intention to make an offer in accordance with rules of the Takeover Code.

This deadline has now been extended until 17:00 on October 12th "to enable the parties to continue their on-going discussions regarding a possible offer for the company."

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As always in these situations, Chemring said that there can be no certainty that an offer will be made at the end of this period.

Chemring, which makes energetic material products and 'countermeasures' for the defence, security and safety markets, announced on August 17th that it had received a "highly preliminary expression of interest" from Carlyle in relation to a possible offer.

Analysts at Credit Suisse said at the time: "Given Carlyle's historic experience with UK defence companies, including QinetiQ (which in our view has a considerably higher level of security IP than Chemring), we believe the bid is credible."

Following a big spike in the shares after the announcement to over 400p, they have come back down in recent weeks, particularly after Chemring revealed a profit warning on August 28th.

The company said that a computer glitch and production delays were likely to have a £15m adverse impact on its bottom line.

By Thursday close this week, the share price had come back down to 327.5p.