Investors who strongly oppose a £65.25 (€76.35) a share offer for DCC as undervaluing the business have been selling shares into the market for even less. The board of DCC Energy recommended the £5.73 billion bid from US private equity groups KKR and Energy Capital Partners after a three-month battle. An initial £4.95 billion bid from the consortium had been rejected out of hand at the end of April.Alongside the £65.25-a-share in cash, the improved bid included DCC’s final dividend of £1.47-a-share as well as the possibility of a further cash payment of up to £1.25 a share depending on the price DCC secures in selling its technology unit, Nexora.However, institutional investors led by Fidelity, Aviva, Ninety One and Marathon have opposed the deal, arguing that even the higher recommended offer significantly undervalued the FTSE-100 listed business.Speaking in advance of the DCC board’s recommendation, Fidelity International, one of the group’s largest investors, said it stood by its original view that the proposal did not “adequately” reflect fair value of DCC and its long-term growth prospects. “We therefore do not support the revised proposal and would not accept anything below £70 in cash per share,” said Alex Wright, UK equity portfolio manager at the group.Aviva’s head of UK active equities, Matt Bennison, at that time dismissed the “very modest increase” in the price. “We firmly believe that [it] is not in the interest of our clients to sell the business at this level,” he said.Nick Longhurst, a portfolio manager at Marathon, said the addition of the Nexora payment had been “a minor tweak”. Alessandro Dicorrado, a UK equity manager at Ninety One, had earlier said he opposed the bid. “I don’t like the price on DCC,” he said.However, since the initial offer at the end of April, all four groups – which between them held close to a quarter of the shares in DCC – appear to have sold down their stakes in the business. None has achieved even the price on offer in the bid – even before the Nexora bonus – on those sales.Ninety One, which owned 3.4 per cent of the business, has sold the bulk of its interests, according to regulatory filings, and now holds a stake of 0.69 per cent.Aviva, similarly, now holds just 0.7 per cent of the shares, down from just shy of 2.2 per cent a few months ago.Marathon Asset Management’s 2.59 stake has shrunk to 2.23 per cent with the company most recently selling shares at £63.70.Fidelity International appears to have reduced its stake in the business from 15.24 per cent at the end of April to 11.28 per cent now, over three million shares fewer, although it is possible other Fidelity entities have been buyers.Some of those shares have been sold for sums below £57, with the bulk trading in the low £60s. The shares, which spiked 17 per cent to a four-year high of £62.45 on the original approach, have since been trading between just under £61 and £63.85.