Plenty of action at Diverger, the ASX-listed licensee services group which had already agreed to be acquired by rival financial services outfit, Count Limited. That deal was for around $1.14 per share in cash and scrip., an asset finance broking group, has lobbed a rival offer, Street Talk understands. The offer was made last week and is at a premium to County’s. Sources said the bid was at around $1.40 per share – half cash, half scrip.
The question is whether COG’s bid will be enough to get HUB24, a strategic player in the sector, across the line. Diverger provides services to financial advisers and accountants, including back office support to AFSL licensees, dealer groups and the like. It has a suite of brands under its wing including GPS Wealth, Merit Wealth, SMSF Expert, Paragem and DWA Managed Accounts. Diverger walked away from its Centrepoint takeover bid in August last year.
MA Moelis is on board as Diverger’s financial adviser and MinterEllison as its legal adviser. Diverger last traded at $1.05 per share. According to E&P Capital’s analyst Olivier Coulon, Count’s bid represents a 6.6-times multiple of Diverger’s normalised EBITA in the last financial year – $6.9 million.The tie-up has hefty shareholders on both sides of the transaction. Aside from HUB24, Diverger’s other major shareholders include micro-cap activist investor Armytage at 9.
Together, fund manager NAOS Asset Management and GEGM Investments, a company belonging to McCullough’s wife, control just over half of COG.has co-edited Street Talk since 2009, specialising in private equity, investment banking, M&A and equity capital markets stories. Prior to that, she spent 10 years in London as a markets and M&A reporter at Bloomberg and Dow Jones.is a co-editor of the Street Talk column. Prior to that, she was a markets reporter at The Australian Financial Review.
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