In a public acquisition, the document by which the bidder makes the formal legal offer to target shareholders. On a takeover to which the Takeover Code (the Code) applies, the detailed requirements for the contents of an offer document are set out in Rule 24 and (on a recommended offer) Rule 25 of the Code. On a hostile bid, the offer document will not contain information for which the target company is responsible, and so only Rule 24 will be relevant. If the offer is recommended at the outset, the offer document will also include the recommendation of the target board to its shareholders.

For further information, see Practice notes, Takeovers: overview: Offer document and Takeover documents.