P&O Any port in a storm

P&O shareholders can only sit back and marvel. The UK port operator has just agreed a £3.6bn takeover by PSA International, the port group indirectly owned by the government of Singapore. PSA’s 470p per share offer is a 70% premium to the pre-bid price and values P&O at a whopping 32 times last year’s earnings, compared to an average for the UK of 14 times. That’s a huge amount to pay for an extra 2-3% higher growth rate. But that is unlikely to be the end of the story. The market expects rival...