Rival Cash Bid for Misys Comes into View
Vista Private Equity has made a rival £1.2bn cash offer for Misys, according to the Financial Times. The banking software firm has agreed an all share merger deal with Swiss technology firm Temenos but the offer of cash may prove tempting to some shareholders.
The US private equity group has put forward an indicative offer of about 360p for every Misys share, a 16% premium over Friday’s closing price of 309.6p, which pushed Misys shares up 9%, rising 28p to stand at 337p yesterday. Speculation is rising that a 400p per share premium may now be necessary to clinch the deal.
The present Vista offer is still lower than the £1.4bn offer Misys is believed to have received from Fidelity National Information Services last year, but the cash rich nature of it may prove tempting, or at least push Temenos into adding a cash element into their offer. Temenos’ Guy Dubois is slated to lead the merged entity if the agreed merger doesn’t unravel.
Vista Private Equity recently brought Kondor, Thomson Reuters’ trading and risk management unit so the US fund may be looking to combine it with Misys to create synergies in the global market for treasury and capital markets software, where it would be a clear leader.
The move by the US fund could now prompt a full scale bidding war with other potential bidders perhaps being flushed out of the undergrowth.