Petershill Partners to quit London stock market

(Sharecast News) - Petershill Partners is to delist from the London stock market, the British investment firm announced on Thursday, after concluding it was undervalued as a public company. Founded by Goldman Sachs in 2007, the firm - which remains majority owned by the Wall Street bank - made its London debut in September 2021.

Since then, Petershill said assets under management had reached $351bn, at an annualised growth rate of 17%.

However, it argued that despite a "strong" operating and financial performance, the firm's share price and valuation had not reflected the quality or underlying value of its assets, financial performance or growth prospects.

The board has therefore opted to delist the business, returning around $921m in cash returned to shareholders.

Under the proposed terms, freefloat shareholders will receive $4.15 in cash for every ordinary share cancelled.

Combined with the $0.052 interim dividend, the offer represents a premium of around 35% to Wednesday's closing price and values Petershill at around $4.5bn.

As at 0830 BST, shares in Petershill had rocketed 33% at 307.58p.

In a joint statement, Ali Raissi-Dehkordy and Robert Hamilton Kelly, co-heads of Goldman Sachs Petershill Group, said: "The operator agrees that this is in the best interests of the company, free-float shareholders and shareholders as a whole.

"The board and operator believe the company has been consistently undervalued despite strong delivery of its strategy and that this is a unique opportunity to return significant near-term value to free-float shareholders."

The firm also published interim results on Thursday, showing partner distributable earnings of $152m in the six months to 30 June, up 9%.

Adjusted earnings before interest and tax rose to $167m from $128m, with a margin of 89% and adjusted earnings per share of 11.4 cents, up from 8.5 cents.

Total capital return was $265m.

Raissi-Dehkordy and Hamilton Kelly said: "We are pleased that our partner-firms have raised $19bn of gross fee-eligible assets in the first half, despite volatile markets earlier in the year."