Hargreaves Lansdown’s board has finally accepted the latest bid from the consortium which has been trying to buy the firm for much of the summer.
The bid values HL at £5.4 billion and was accepted on the last day possible.
The new was confirmed on Friday morning with bidder Harp Bidco (set up for the purpose) backed by a consortium, made up of CVC, Nordic Capital and an Abu Dhabi Investment Authority subsidiary Platinum Ivy. Harp Bidco previously had two bids rejected.
As Money Marketing reports, the previous offer of 985p per share had been turned down, but 1,140p per share has seen the board unanimously recommend that shareholders take the deal.
The Telegraph has taken a useful look at what it means for investors’ money.
It is, of course, another London listed firm, going private as the Evening Standard notes.
The paper adds that “compared to the Hargreaves Lansdown share price before the approach was first made in April, the price is at a premium of over 54%”.
Not sure Peter Hargreaves or Stephen Lansdown would agree with the following assertion from the same newspaper – “Hargreaves Lansdown is named after its founders – Peter Hargreaves and Stephen Lansdown – who set it up as an investment tip sheet. It now runs a state-of-the-art trading platform from which clients can run their own portfolios and pensions.”
(A tip sheet, was it Peter?)
Anyway, he will probably prefer the FT Lex column’s take on matter, which has some more interesting details.
It notes that the consortium is offering £11.40 per share, which includes the full-year dividend of 30p. Lex thought £12 about right previously. However, it continues:
“Hence, perhaps, why Peter Hargreaves plans to stick around, accepting half in cash and half in shares for his 19.8 per cent stake. True, fellow co-founder Stephen Lansdown will take all cash for his 5.7 per cent stake. (The two stand to receive £535mn and £309mn respectively.) Including Hargreaves’ 10 per cent stake, rollover investors could end up with 35 per cent of the private business.”
In other unsurprising news Citywire reports that Japan fund managers snapped up tech stocks and small-caps after crash.
Interesting from the boss of the CII Matthew Hill speaking to FTAdviser. “He said: "AI potentially removes the need for technical expertise, and so you can then see why people might see that as a threat.
"Now many professionals would say 'Ah, people still want to deal with human beings', and I've been guilty of making that sort of assumption too.
"But I am not sure humans will still want to do business only with humans. The focus of what being a professional is might need to change because the human customer may not need you for the technical expertise anymore.”
I know what he means, but advisers may beg to differ.
Stocks end the week roughly where they started as Barron’s reports and analyses here, which means that all the financial planners telling people to hold tight were proved right even sooner than they thought. Nice.
