Euronextoperator of the Paris, Amsterdam, Brussels and Dublin stock exchanges has issued an offer for €5.5 billion to acquire the Spanish technology management platform, allfunds. This fact has caused fintech shares to skyrocket to close to 18%, reaching a value of around €5.4 billion.
Allfunds, based in Madrid and the United Kingdom, currently has the average valuation of an Ibex company, placing it in the first place in the ranking of emerging Spanish companies, even ahead of Glovo or Cabify. The two largest shareholders of the company are currently the fund Hellman & Friedman fundwith 34% of the capital, and the French bank BNP Paribaswith 12%.
The purchase operation by Euronext would be through a takeover bid, valuing the titles at 8.75 euros, above its current value at which the shares are listed, which is 8.58 euros. If the agreement with the main shareholders of Allfunds is consolidated, the takeover bid will be closed with full success. The offer to shareholders is a ticking fee of 5.5%which would be added to the cost of the takeover bid from the date of announcement of the offer until execution, at the latest on March 31, 2024.
The agreement is reaffirmed with another tranche in shares of 0.4059 new Euronext titles for each one of Allfundsgenerating a 19% bonus compared to the price at which the titles closed last Tuesday, 7.33 euro. The situation could become complicated for Euronext if other players such as Helvéita Sixwhich has owned BME since the 2020 takeover bid, the German Stock Exchange Deutsche Borsethe NYSE and even the Singapore Stock Exchange. The latter have been exploring the option of buying assets in Europe for some time.
On Wednesday, February 22, Euronext closed a 17.25% rise in its shares on the Stock Market, reaching 8.6 euros. The hikes even they reached 28% after announcing the company’s intention to buy Allfunds, so until bid moderation is achieved, it is not ruled out that other powerful investors may enter it.
Considering its rally, Allfunds shares are currently positioned at more than 50% below the levels reached in October 2021when they recorded their all-time high and the business as a whole was valued at more than 11,500 million euros.
The Allfunds methodology
Juan Alcaraz is the founding partner and chief executive of Allfunds. His experience as a manager of investment firms and CEO of Santander Asset Management of Banco Santander have led him to have an optimal position and knowledge of the market, reaping record figures. Next to him we find Luis Carmonatechnology manager from Bankia and currently at CaixaBank.
The unstoppable success of Allfunds has led it to hire some 1,300 people and to generate interest in other stock market operators such as the German Deutsche Böerse. Your assets are around a value of 1.3 trillion euros currently. Originally, the fintech opted for the Dutch market, owned by Euronext, setting its placement price at 11.5 euros, so it would plummet 25.4%. Its entry on the stock market in 2021 valued the company at 7.250 millionthe biggest opening of a Spanish company since the entry of Aena in 2015.
In 2017, both Santander and San Paolo sold their stakes in Allfunds to the Singapore sovereign wealth fund (GIC) and the US venture capital fund Hellman & Friedman. The company came to be worth more than 11,000 million euros in the months after its IPO. Since then, its valuation has been falling considerably hand in hand with falls in the technology sector as a result of interest rates.
The offer now launched by Euronext comes after the divestments carried out in recent months by the main Allfunds shareholders have been consolidated. Credit Suisse chose to place on the market a 8.6% of the capital of the fund supermarket in the midst of the profound restructuring that was being undertaken. In November three other large shareholders emerged, establishing a placement of 6.4% of the capital at a price of 7.2 euros per share.
