Norway's Verdane to buy Augmentum Fintech in £185.7m deal

(Sharecast News) - Augmentum Fintech surged on Wednesday after it agreed to be taken over by Norwegian investment firm Verdane in a £185.7m deal. Under the terms of the transaction, Verdane will pay 111p per share in cash, which is a premium of about 27% to the closing share price on Tuesday.

Augmentum chairman William Reeve said: "Since our IPO in 2018, Augmentum has been at the heart of the UK and European fintech sectors, backing high-growth companies such as Tide, Zopa, Iwoca, Cushon and Interactive Investor. However, we recognise that for our shareholders, this portfolio's potential has not been reflected in Augmentum's market valuation.

"Over several years, we have faced a persistent and widening discount to net asset value, compounded by low levels of liquidity. This has made it difficult for shareholders to realise the true value of their holdings or for Augmentum to raise the capital necessary to support our ambitions."

He said the board ran a process to consider a range of strategic options and that it was now recommending the offer from Verdane as it was "the best we received".

"By accepting this offer, shareholders can realise value today that the public markets have been unable to provide, while ensuring our portfolio companies are able to gain access to the deep capital and expertise of Verdane, alongside the existing management, for their next chapter," he said.

At 1035 GMT, Augmentum shares were up 24% at 108.72p.