There’s hard to get, then there’s Informa. Over the past two years the UK publishing house has seen off approaches from Cinven and Candover, then rival UBM, and last night, a cobbled-together consortium comprising Providence, Carlyle and Blackstone. Over that period the company’s shares have fallen from 488p to about 350p. Is this the most intractable board alive?

A closer inspection of the most recently lapsed deal shows that the board’s intransigence is not the only explanation for Informa’s continued independence. Back in June, a leak on the FT Alphaville website, setting out the terms of the offer and a price (north of 500p), obliged the Takeover Panel to step in and force Informa to acknowledge it was in talks. Once that number was out there, it couldn’t be retracted – regardless of its origins. Informa duly opened its books.