Peel Group bids £583m to take property regeneration firm Harworth private
Shares in property regeneration firm Harworth Group surged 24 percent after billionaire John Whittaker's Peel Group made an unsolicited £583 million cash offer to take the company private.
Peel Group, which already holds a near-30 percent stake in the FTSE 250-listed company, proposed buying the remaining shares it does not own. The infrastructure and property firm said it believed Harworth's assets would be best owned, managed and developed under full private ownership.
Harworth specialises in transforming former industrial sites, including collieries, power stations and coal mines across the North of England and Midlands, into residential and commercial developments. The company manages approximately 16,000 acres across around 100 sites, with flagship projects including Waverley in Rotherham, built on the former Orgreave Colliery site, and Gateway 36 in Barnsley.
Founded in 2004 as the property division of UK Coal and named after the Nottinghamshire village where its headquarters were located, Harworth has evolved into one of Britain's largest brownfield regeneration companies.
The board urged shareholders to take no action while it assessed the terms of the bid. Harworth's shares climbed 34.4p to 178p, valuing the company close to Peel's offer price.
Billionaire's property empire
Behind the bid stands 84-year-old John Whittaker, who began building his property and infrastructure empire in the 1960s by supplying aggregate from family quarries to motorway projects. Today, Peel Group manages over 33,000 acres of land and approximately 13 million square feet of buildings, with collective investments owned and under management exceeding £5 billion.
The family-owned business is controlled by the Whittaker family with a 68 percent stake, while Saudi Arabian investment firm Olayan Group holds a 25 percent minority interest.
Property sector takeover wave
The Harworth bid represents the latest in a series of takeovers sweeping through Britain's property sector. Real estate investment trust Segro recently agreed a £14 billion takeover by US logistics firm Prologis in early August, after four separate offers and pressure from investors.
UK property sector REITs have been trading at significant discounts to their net asset values throughout 2025 and 2026, making them attractive targets for private equity and international buyers seeking undervalued assets.
If all deals currently in progress are completed, 2026 would see more than £69 billion worth of takeovers of UK-listed firms, making it the highest-value year for such transactions since the pandemic, according to investment platform AJ Bell.
