Bovis' management is trying to talk up the price to £300m, but City insiders say there little hope of achieving it. This is because the market has been hit by the recent interest rate rise and the last-minute cancellation of a float by property firm Regus Business Centres.
Mike Betts of JP Morgan said: "The market is not that strong for initial public offerings [flotations] and if the Bovis board doesn't think it is going to get a good price, it may well have to pull it." Another analyst said: "The float is not necessarily ill-conceived, but I don't see it is going to get anything like £300m." The Regus cancellation came about because the entrepreneur behind the business, Mark Dixon, failed to convince the City that it was worth the £1bn valuation put on the issue.
Merrill Lynch analyst Kevin Cammack said the Regus failure would not affect Bovis. He expected the float to go ahead as planned.
