US private equity giant Apollo has walked away from takeover plans for two British listed companies – ecommerce firm THG and engineering group John Wood – sending shares in the firms down 20% and 33% respectively. THG which owns the Cult Beauty and Myprotein websites, said that Apollo’s offer – which hasn’t been made public - undervalued the business. THG has had several setbacks since its high profile listing in 2020, with the company seeing annual losses almost treble to £550m last year. John Wood had been approached by Apollo (for the fifth time) in a deal worth £1.7bn. The company’s board said that it remains confident in the firm’s “strategic direction and long-term prospects following a transformative year in 2022”. Since the Brexit vote in 2016, British public companies have been the target of foreign investors thanks to their cheap valuations driven by the relatively weak pound.