LONDON (Alliance News) - SimplyBiz Group PLC on Wednesday announced a fundraise to help pay for the GBP74 million acquisition of Regulus Topco Ltd.
Regulus Topco is the owner of Defaqto, a financial services technology firm with a platform which rates financial products and funds.
Compliance and business services provider SimplyBiz will pay GBP74.3 million in total for Regulus.
SimplyBiz will place shares at 170 pence each, a 6% discount to its closing price on Tuesday, to raise GBP29.1 million in both a primary placing and a vendor placing. The vendors of Regulus Topco then will sell the SimplyBiz shares acquired to institutional investors.
The stock was trading at 201.00p a share on Wednesday morning, up 4.9%.
SimplyBiz also will issue some GBP7.5 million in new shares to the vendors as consideration shares, which they will retain.
New bank facilities from Yorkshire Bank and Natwest will fund another GBP37.5 million. The final part of the acquisition price will be GBP200,000 of SimplyBiz's own cash.
SimplyBiz joint Chief Executives Neil Stevens and Matt Timmins commented: "We are delighted to announce the successful acquisition of Defaqto, which will play an important role in building on the group's strong momentum and enabling us to unlock a wide range of additional growth opportunities."
"The combination of the largest provider of outsourced regulatory and business support to the retail financial services market, with one of the leading providers of financial information and technology, will create a market leading platform across Retail Financial Services," they continued.
"Collectively the two businesses will work to enhance our proposition to the banking and general insurance sectors whilst continuing to invest in the leading fintech platform."