Patsystems gets £29m offer
SHARES in Patsystems, a supplier of derivatives trading technology, jumped almost 30 per cent yesterday after its biggest shareholder came forward with a bid valuing it at £29m.
Patsystems admitted it had been hit hard by the shock collapse of US broking group MF Global, its biggest customer, in October.
But it welcomed the 14p per share offer from ION Trading, its biggest investor with a 27.9 per cent stake. The offer was at a 27 per cent premium to its closing price on Friday.
“The board acknowledges the company’s strong commercial fit with ION, their greater financial stability, as well as the potential benefits to staff, customers and product development,” it said in a statement.
Patsystems said MF Global’s meltdown would reduce its revenues and so profits by £500,000 this year, while more than £900,000 of its money was tied up in MF Global when it filed for bankruptcy protection.
It said the wind-up process was “impacting the release of client funds to enable MF Global’s customers to migrate to new platform providers and hence to resume trading.”
Patsystems said it had checked how financially stable the rest of its clients were and set aside between £600,000 and £1.3m against two in particular.