UK's IP Group gets sweetened takeover offer from top investor Railpen

July 17 (Reuters) - Railpen, the largest shareholder in Britain's IP Group, said on Friday it has made a sweetened takeover offer for the early-stage science investor, nearly a month after IP Group rejected an earlier approach.

• Under the latest proposal, IP Group shareholders would receive 61 pence per share in cash, up from 59 pence per share earlier, and a share of the company's entire Oxford Nanopore Technologies stake, valued at 10.6 pence per IP Group share.

• Shareholders would also receive a contingent value right of up to 11.3 pence per share tied to an increase in the value of IP Group's stake in Metsera — a clinical-stage biotech firm — by the end of 2029.

• Excluding the contingent portion, the offer implies a value of about 71.6 pence per IP Group share, representing a premium of about 10.8% to their last close of 64.6 pence on Friday.

• Railpen, which manages more than £34 billion ($45.74 billion) in assets for railway pension schemes, holds an 18.4% stake in IP Group.

• IP Group rejected the last offer on June 23 saying it "materially undervalued" the company. Prior to that, Railpen had approached IP Group three times.

($1 = 0.7434 pounds)

(Reporting by Anusha Shah in Bengaluru and Kanjyik Ghosh in Barcelona; Editing by Vijay Kishore and Jonathan Ananda)