Macquarie Group won the bidding war against USSL, a pension scheme in the United Kingdom, to acquire KCOM, a UK communications and IT services provider, with a £628m ($787m) bid. Macquarie's final offer represented a premium of 66% to the closing price of 72.5 pence for each KCOM share on 23 April 2019. KCOM said it found the offer to be fair and reasonable, and recommended shareholders to vote in favor of it. "We are pleased that the KCOM Board is recommending our takeover offer. KCOM has a strong local heritage that has been developed over more than a century and is well-positioned to continue to meet the evolving telecommunications needs of the region, which is why we have made this compelling offer to shareholders at an attractive premium," Leigh Harrison, MIRA EMEA Head.