Hargreaves Lansdown has accepted a takeover bid from a private equity consortium which includes the Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund.
In a statement today (August 9) Hargreaves Lansdown announced the consortium, now named Harp Bidco Limited and made up of CVC Advisers, Nordic Capital and Abu Dhabi Investment Authority subsidiary Platinum Ivy had reached an agreement on an offer.
The offer consists of a cash deal of £11.10 per share and a 30 pence dividend which the board of directors called ‘fair and reasonable’ and values the company at £5.4bn.
According to the statement, 25.5 per cent of shareholders have given irrevocable and non-binding confirmations supporting the deal.
Hargreaves Lansdown previously rejected a possible offer of £9.85 per share from the PE backed consortium earlier this year (May 2024).
Preliminary results
The FTSE 250 company also released its preliminary results for the year ended June 30 which revealed net new business of £4.2bn.
According to the results, Hargreaves Lansdown now has 1,882,000 active clients, an increase of 78,000 in the year with £155.3bn of assets under administration.
Profit before tax fell by 2 per cent to £396.3mn while underlying profit before tax rose by 4 per cent to £456mn.
Hargreaves Lansdown recently launched its managed and multi-index funds which it said accounted for 80 per cent of the company's funds growth in the fourth quarter of the year.
Dan Olley, chief executive of Hargreaves Lansdown called it an “eventful” 12 months for the firm.
He said while the firm has made “solid progress” in the past year, he felt there was much more to do to deliver on its ambitions.
“Success requires navigating a complex and broad programme of change and there is no doubt that delivery of benefits will not be linear, but we know what needs to be done and are determined to achieve it by delivering steadily and surely keeping our focus on our clients and meeting our medium to longer-term objectives,” he added.
Olley said he was “very positive” about the future of Hargreaves Lansdown.
As previously reported by FT Adviser, Hargreaves Lansdown has been facing a number of challenges.
Among them were regulatory issues, an ageing client base, challenges from newer incumbents and changing technology, and the prevailing economic conditions. The company dropped out of the FTSE 100 towards the end of last year.
The provider's previous results revealed declining growth in new money coming on to the platform and power profitability with the share price falling 8 per cent on the day as a consequence.
alina.khan@ft.com
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