Ion has thrown down the gauntlet for Fidessa with £1.5bn bid, as Temenos loses board’s support for its offer
Ion Group Investments has waded into the battle for software company Fidessa, making a formal £1.5bn bid for the company just over two hours before the deadline.
Fidessa had already recommended that shareholders accept a £1.4bn offer from Swiss rival Temenos, but has now changed its allegiance to recommend Fidessa’s bid.
“The Fidessa board, which has been so advised by Rothschild as to the financial terms of the offer, considers the terms of the offer to be fair and reasonable,” Ion said in a statement.
“Accordingly, the Fidessa directors intend to recommend unanimously that Fidessa Shareholders accept, or procure the acceptance of, the offer.”
Read more: Battle for Fidessa heats up as Ion Group Investment confirms it’s considering a £1.5bn takeover bid ahead of today’s deadline
Fidessa investors will also receive a 79.7p final dividend for 2017, bringing the total price they will receive per share to £39.50.
Ion’s offer was 8.5 per cent higher than Temenos’s £35.67 per share, and is a 48.6 premium to Fidessa’s share price before the takeover became public knowledge.
The company has already received support for its bid from 25.1 per cent of shareholders, including activist Elliott which had begun building a stake in the company.
“Ion shares our vision of driving workflow automation in the world’s financial markets and has a highly complementary business to ours: Fidessa is a leader in equities and derivatives and Ion is a leader in fixed income and FX,” said Fidessa’s chairman John Hamer.
Read more: Read more: Fidessa trades above Temenos offer price in £1.4bn acquisition after Elliott Capital discloses stake
Ion must now get acceptances from 75 per cent of shareholders within the next 21 days.
The bidder said that it would hope to save $60m by combining the two businesses, which could mean job cuts.
It said that it was still finalising plans around restructuring and “workforce reductions”, and as such “cannot be certain what, if any, repercussions there will be on the locations of Fidessa’s or Ion’s places of business, any redeployment of Fidessa’s or Ion’s fixed assets or the number of employees”.
Read more: Fidessa offer deadline set for Ion and and SS&C by UK Takeover Panel