Renishaw shares surged on Tuesday after the engineer said it was putting itself up for sale as its founders look to sell their stake.
The company said executive chairman Sir David McMurtry and non-executive deputy chairman John Deer would sell their shareholdings in Renishaw, which together make up around 53% of the group.
Renishaw said they had have expressed a preference for the disposal of their entire combined shareholding.
“The board has considered various options with its advisers. In considering these options the board, including the founders, has had regard to the interests of all the company’s stakeholders,” it said. “The board has unanimously concluded that it would be appropriate to investigate the sale of the company and is therefore launching a formal sale process for the company.”
McMurtry and Deer said: “We are both grateful for our continued good health, however we recognise that neither of us is getting any younger. Now finding ourselves in our 80s, our thoughts have increasingly turned to considering the future of our shareholdings in the company and how we can actively contribute to securing the future success of the business.
“With that in mind, we approached the rest of the board to indicate that we felt the time was now right to discuss the best way to achieve this.”
At 0850 GMT, the shares were up 18% at 6,829.92p.
