LONDON — The British construction and services company Balfour Beatty said on Friday that it had rejected a takeover bid for its investment arm by the John Laing Infrastructure Fund, a European investor in schools, hospitals and transportation.
The fund, which is based in London and known as JLIF, offered on Monday to buy Balfour Beatty’s portfolio of public-private partnership investments for 1 billion pounds, or about $1.6 billion.
“The board has concluded that the proposal falls significantly short of its own view of the value of the portfolio, and accordingly the proposal from JLIF has been rejected,” Balfour Beatty said in a news release.
In August, Balfour Beatty said that it had valued the portfolio at £1.05 billion as of June.
The company said on Friday, however, that the realizable value of the portfolio, through sales of individual assets as each investment matured, “continues to be substantially in excess of the current directors’ valuation.”
Balfour Beatty said it had recently sold an investment at a 28 percent premium to the valuation determined in June. It said it planned to update its valuation for the portfolio in January.
The approach by the John Laing fund came less than four months after Carillion, a British construction rival, abandoned its pursuit of Balfour Beatty.
Carillion and Balfour Beatty entered merger discussions this summer, but Balfour Beatty called off those talks in a dispute over whether its Parsons Brinckerhoff consulting business would remain a part of the combined company.
Balfour Beatty eventually sold Parsons Brinckerhoff for $1.35 billion in September to WSP Global, a Canadian professional services company.
Shares of the John Laing fund rose 1.6 percent to £1.23 in early trading in London on Friday, while shares of Balfour Beatty rose 2 percent to £1.88.