Canaccord in £159m takeover
04 March 2010
Canada-based broker and investment group Canaccord Financial is buying Genuity Capital Markets for £159 million in shares and cash.
Based in Toronto
and listed there and on AIM, Canaccord is buying five year-old Genuity for its
strength in the lucrative deal underwriting market in North America and the UK.
Canaccord is issuing shares and paying C$30 million (£13 million) cash in a
deal which values Genuity at nearly C$286 million.
David Kassie,
chairman and chief executive officer of Genuity, which led 13 underwritings
last year with an average size of C$109 million each, will join the board of
Canaccord, along with colleague Philip Evershed. Genuity’s earnings have
fluctuated with the market, surging from C$17.6 million in the year to January
2007 to C$84 million in 2007-08 before plunging to nothing in 2009-09 and
bouncing to nearly C$32million in 2009-10.
Canaccord
chairman Peter Brown says joining forces with Genuity makes the company’s goal
of demonstrating Canadian leadership ‘even more of a reality’. Canaccord’s
shares, which have traded between 650p and 225p over the past year, now stand
at 562.5p, down 12.5p this morning, valuing the company at £307 million.
