LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) - GardaWorld has left the door open for G4S to escape its hostile bid. The Canadian security company raised its offer for the London-listed peer to 3.7 billion pounds on Wednesday, having argued much less was fair just two days earlier. The new price is not a knockout, giving investors reason to hold out for more. Investors might have jumped at the 235 pence per share offer back in September, when BC Partners-backed GardaWorld first parked its tanks on G4S’s lawn. The group’s shares, pummelled by years of scandal and the pandemic fallout, were trading at around 145 pence a share. Now, following strong trading updates and a vaccine-driven recovery, investors are feeling more upbeat. The higher offer is still low enough for GardaWorld to do very well. It could make a return on investment of almost 10% by 2022, according to a Breakingviews calculation assuming synergies of 3% of the target’s revenue and based on Refinitiv forecasts. That’s higher than G4S’s cost of capital of around 8%, as estimated by UBS. GardaWorld Chief Executive Stephan Cretier’s aggressive strategy hasn’t helped. First, he bid 190 pence a share even after several major shareholders publicly said it wasn’t enough. This wasted time, giving California-based rival Allied Universal time to table its own offer of 210 pence per share, which G4S has also rejected. Cretier also handed his target ammunition when telling Le Telejournal Montreal that buying G4S was GardaWorld’s only way to become a global leader. Given his and his backers’ apparent need to do a deal, his lowball offer and persistent criticism of G4S lost credibility. G4S investors now have two get-out-of-jail cards. Allied Universal has until Dec. 9 to make a formal offer for the security firm, a week before the deadline for accepting GardaWorld’s bid. The Canadian group has reserved the right to up its offer if Allied steps into the ring. The current share price of 246 pence suggests investors are betting on a bidding war. If Cretier had been more generous earlier on, he might have avoided one.