QXL bid battle enters final straight

Last week, the firm’s directors withdrew their support for a takeover offer from Tiger Acquisition, which represents QXL chief executive Mark Zaleski and executive directors Jonathan Bulkeley and Robert Dighero.

The firm had raised its offer for the online auctioneer to £17m.

However, directors are instead supporting a revised offer of £23.8m from Florissant, a Dutch-based consortium involving two London-based businessmen.

In a statement, QXL said the Tiger offer was less certain "given the value, timing and security of the litigation entitlement unit."

Tiger said today that its offer has lapsed having won acceptances from shareholders with about 19% of the company's shares, but now any shares transferred under the offer will now be returned.

Florissant yesterday claimed just over 27% of QXL and agreed terms with the independent directors.

Florissant has reached a deal that gives Great Hill Equity Partners II LLC, Tiger's main funder in the QXL bid, an option to subscribe for 23% of Florissant after its bid is declared unconditional.

QXL was set up as Europe’s answer to eBay, but it has struggled to compete with the US Auction giant. It operates in 10 European countries, and was founded in 1997.

The website enables users to buy and sell goods on an auction bid basis.

In its most recent market update, QXL said it reduced half-yearly losses to £383,000 from £6m previously, while turnover was 62% higher at £2.98m. At the time of its flotation in 1999, the auctioneer was valued at £1.5bn.