Telecoms firm Daisy in talks with Phoenix IT
TELECOMS company Daisy is in discussions with cloud IT firm Phoenix to take it over in a £180m cash deal.
The bid is in conjunction with the private equity fund Toscafund, which helped Daisy de-list and go private in August last year. Phoenix said it “is in advanced discussions” with Daisy and Toscafund, at a value of 160p a share, and that Daisy had conducted due diligence on the proposal.
On the back of the prospect of the takeover, shares in Phoenix surged to close 18.22 per cent up, at 152.5p. They had traded as high as 157.5p during the day.
Under the takeover code, having publicly stated its interest, Daisy now has until 5pm on 18 June to formally announce whether or not it will make an offer for Phoenix. If a deal is completed it would make Daisy one of the largest business telecoms firms. Research from Megabuyte said that the expanded company would be bigger than the business media divisions of both TalkTalk and Virgin Media, with a combined revenue of £620m.
In a similar move, Daisy acquired communications company Damovo back in February, also working alongside private equity funds.
BEHIND THE DEAL
ANTHONY GUTMAN – GOLDMAN SACHS
1 Gutman, who is working for Daisy, was nominated for a City A.M. award last year for work on deals including B&M and SSP floats.
2 Gutman ran the London Marathon last month, running an impressive time, finishing the 26-mile course in three hours and 49 minutes.
3 Recent M&A work includes the successful defence of pharma firm Shire, driving up the price offered by rival AbbVie’s takeover bid.
Also advising…
Investec’s Andrew Pinder is acting as financial adviser and corporate broker to Phoenix, along with Patrick Robb and Sebastian Lawrence. Nicholas van den Arend and Chris Emmerson are working with Gutman.