Kilsaran Concrete Products has withdrawn a revised offer of €1.90 per share for Readymix after being rebuffed by the company's board for the second time.

In a statement released yesterday, Kilsaran said that following the rejection of its first approach, which was pitched at €1.75 per share, it revised its possible offer upward to €1.90 per share.

Kilsaran noted that this represented a premium of 52 per cent on the levels at which Readymix shares were trading prior to the announcement that it was considering an offer.

But the Readymix board, which is chaired by Mr Martin Rafferty, again rejected the offer.

Kilsaran then indicated that any improvement in the price it was prepared to pay would be dependent on the provision by Readymix of information that would demonstrate incremental value.

"As Readymix has refused to provide any such information, Kilsaran has decided to withdraw its proposal with immediate effect," the company said.

Readymix declined to comment last night. Its shares closed unchanged at €1.50.

The building materials group is majority owned by the British-based RMC, which holds a 63 per cent stake. The remaining 37 per cent is owned by a mixture of private and institutional investors, the largest of which is Bank of Ireland Asset Management.

RMC has been struggling in recent years and is attempting to cut its net debt to below £1 billion sterling (€1.45 billion) by year-end, leading analysts to believe that it might have been open to an approach to acquire its stake in Readymix.

Despite speculation that other parties might be interested in making a bid for Readymix, none has been forthcoming to date.

Readymix posted a 16 per cent fall in pre-tax profits to €21.6 million last year but has debt of just €28.8 million and good cashflow.