Peace breaks out in Safestyle
v Safeglaze as Misra backs off with
non-compete pledge
23rd October 2018

The battle of Safestyle and Safeglaze looked set to be cooling this week this week as Safestyle secured a non-compete arrangement with Mitu Misra, the original founder of the company and now the man behind the aggressive new rival, in return for a conditional cash consideration of up to £2million to Misra.

Shares shot up by nearly a third in one day after Safestyle’s Stock Market announcement yesterday – the second of three such statements in less than a week – and rose again later after a statement hours later that one major investor had doubled its stake to 10% on the back of the news.

It began on Friday when Safestyle was forced to formally deny industry rumours of a possible acquisition of Niamac Developments (Safeglaze), adding that it was ‘considering certain other arrangements …that could benefit Safestyle's business and accelerate its recovery.”

This was expanded on Monday with a second statement, saying it had entered a five-year non-compete agreement with Misra, adding the latter was to ‘provide services to support the continued recovery of Safestyle’.

The statement continued: “The Company has agreed consideration with Mr Misra subject to the satisfaction of both clear performance conditions by him over the period to Q4 2020 and Safestyle's trading performance in 2019 being above existing market expectations.

“Subject to satisfying the strict terms of the agreement the consideration will take the form of an allotment by Safestyle to Mr Misra of four million ordinary shares of 1 pence each in the capital of the Company …and a payment of cash consideration of between £nil and £2.0 million Both the allotment of Shares and payment of the Cash Fees, if any, would only be made in Q4 2020.”

The positive ripples from the settlement were immediately confirmed by the statement that a major stakeholder, Invesco Ltd had more than doubled its stake is Safestyle to 10%.

Safestyle shares rose from a 48.00p low a week ago, reaching a touch under 80.00p at 2pm today.

Yesterday’s statement is also the first time Mitu Misra has been publicly named in connection with Safeglaze, though it was widely known by those close to Safestyle, not least by the identification of his daughter Aarti Rani Misra as company secretary on formal documents Read story.