WH Ireland shares surge after £13m takeover offer by Team

(Sharecast News) - Shares in WH Ireland jumped by over a third on Thursday after the wealth management firm reached a merger deal with larger outfit Team to create a financial services company worth £30m.

After confirming on 13 November that it had received a proposal from Team relating to a possible all-share offer, WH Ireland said shareholders will be entitled to received 0.195 new Team shares for each share owned, giving them around 43.5% of the enlarged share capital.

The exchange ratio, which is identical to the one earmarked two weeks ago, values WH Ireland shares at 5.4p and the entire issued share capital at around £12.7m.

This is a 258% premium to the closing price the day before takeover talks were confirmed, and a 407% premium to the 60-day average prior to that.

WH Ireland's board said they considered the terms of the deal to be "fair and reasonable" and unanimously recommended shareholders to vote in favour.

Along with Team's market cap of £17.1m, the enlarged group would have an estimated market value of £30.3m and be a "diversified, well-governed wealth and asset-management group with regulated operations in Jersey, the UK and selected international markets", the companies said in a joint statement.

WH Ireland chair Simon Moore said the deal "represents an attractive opportunity for our shareholders to participate in a complementary, stronger, and scalable platform".

He added: "We believe that the all-share proposal represents a better outcome for shareholders and clients than an outright sale of the wealth management division, as had been previously envisaged, and as now evidenced by the strong level of support announced today."

WH Ireland shares were up 39.7% at 4.19p by 0922 GMT, while Team gained 1.1% to 27.8p.