)
A rival offer for control of listed brokerage Selfwealth (ASX: SWF) has prompted Bell Financial Group (ASX: BFG) to dig deeper into its pockets and up its bid to $58 million.
The increased offer from Bell’s original $51 million bid launched on 13 November 2024 puts the ball back into rival bidder AxiCorp Financial Services, a Sydney-based global online brokerage group, which trumped Bell’s original offer of 22c per share with a 23c-per-share bid a day later.
Bell’s latest offer of 25c per share compares with Selfwealth’s share price of 12c prior to the takeover manoeuvres being disclosed.
Selfwealth shares were trading at 26.5c at 11.39am (AEDT), indicating that the market is anticipating a counterbid from AxiCorp.
In the meantime, the Selfwealth board has voted to unanimously vote in favour of the Bell offer in the absence of a better proposal after earlier supported the increased bid from Axi.
Selfwealth notes that the offers put forward by both Bell and AxiCorp followed a “confidential competitive process that commenced after Selfwealth received multiple indicative, non-binding and confidential proposals from a number of parties”.
“During this process, designed to maximise value for shareholders, Selfwealth engaged with all parties that SelfWealth Ltd submitted confidential proposals, including Bell and Axi, for example by providing access to due diligence,” says the company.
“While Selfwealth and Bell entered into an exclusivity deed following receipt of the 22c Bell proposal, the 23c Axi proposal was assessed by the Selfwealth board as superior in accordance with the exclusivity deed and accordingly Selfwealth has been able to engage with Axi as well as Bell.
“In recent days Selfwealth undertook a structured process that provided both Bell and Axi the same opportunity to improve the price and the conditionality of their respective proposals. At all times interested parties have been strongly advised to submit their best proposal to Selfwealth.”
The Melbourne-based Selfwealth, which services a customer base comprising about 129,000 active portfolios, has seen a turnaround of its fortunes over the last two years with the company reporting a maiden profit in FY23 and building on that result in FY24.
Underlying EBITDA of $5.5 million in FY24 was up 36 per cent from a year earlier while net profit after tax rocketed to $3.4 million from about $100,000 previously.
Bell Financial, a Melbourne-headquartered company with global operations with more than 750 staff, plans to integrate Selfwealth into its Technology & Platforms business which the company says will add significant scale and boost its sponsored holdings to $94 billion.
Axi Group was founded in 2007 and has a staff of more than 400 across 11 offices globally servicing customers in 120 countries.
Selfwealth has previously indicated that Axi is prepared to negotiate and sign a binding implementation deed as quickly as possible, with its now trumped bid not subject to due diligence or financing conditions.
)
