ION Trading has agreed to acquire Fidessa just hours after it made a proposal to buy the company at a value of £1.5 billion and then transitioned the proposal into a formal offer. The offer trumps the bid for Fidessa made by Temenos in February and initially recommended by Fidessa to its shareholders.
As we noted earlier today, ION Trading proposed to acquire Fidessa for £38.70 per share in cash, valuing Fidessa at about £1.5 billion and entitling shareholders to receive and retain a final dividend and special dividend for the year to the end of December 2017 amounting to 79.7p per share. The company made its formal offer this afternoon, in time to meet today’s 5pm deadline set by the UK Takeover Panel for competing offers.
Lindsell Train, Evenlode Investment Management and Elliott International, which together own 25% of Fidessa’s shares, have given irrevocable undertakings to support the ION Trading offer.
