RPC extends Apollo deadline again

Plastic packaging manufacturer RPC Group has for the fourth time pushed back the deadline for private equity firm Apollo Global Management to make a takeover offer.

This time the Panel on Takeovers and Mergers given Apollo only three more working days to provide a firm intention to make an offer for the FTSE 250 company, setting a put-up-or-shut up deadline of 1700 GMT on 23 January.

Apollo has now completed due diligence on RPC, it said, with the talks "at an advanced stage", having first been confirmed in early September, with the deadline for a firm offer having been extended into November and then December and then January.

RPC has come under pressure from investors over its growth plans and appropriate level of debt. Chairman Jamie Pike said in the summer that "differing investor views on the appropriate level of leverage is constraining the group’s ability to pursue some attractive opportunities for growth".

Last month, the group said it had completed the sale of two out of the three non-core disposals it was planning.