Vista drops out of billion-pound bidding war for UK tech firm Blue Prism causing investors to grumble
The £1.22bn bidding war for technology group Blue Prism appears to be over after US Vista Equity Partners declined to increase its offer.
Vista had made the first bid for Blue Prism, the software firm which specialising in robotics and automation, in September, agreeing a deal at £1.10bn, with the terms of a cash offer of 1,125 pence per Blue Prism share for the entire issued.
In early November SS&C Technologies, which is also an American business specialising in financial services tech, floated ideas of a £1.17bn bid, which was followed by an increased and final £1.22bn bid from Vista.
However, last week SS&C agreed a 1,275p-per-share deal with Blue Prism’s board, 150p higher than Vista’s opening bid, that now priced the group at £1.24bn.
Blue Prism issued a statement this morning confirming that Vista had four days from the announcement of SS&C’s competing and higher offer to revoke its previous statement that it would not increase its bid, but that deadline has now passed.
The note said: “No such announcement has been made by Vista and, accordingly, the increased Vista Offer is final and cannot be increased.”
Investors had been hoping for the bidding war to continue. Blue Prism’s share price closed last night at 1,313p, which gives the business a market value of £1.28bn; Blue Prism shares are already down over three per this morning to 1,266p.
But not all is lost, and the current SS&C bid still represents a 53 per cent increase on Blue Prism’s share price from before Vista’s first bid was revealed.
Neil Parker, General Manager of EMEA for Laiye, one of Blue Prism’s competitors and Asia’s leading intelligent automation provider, commented: “While the bidding war appears to have slowed down for Blue Prism, it does not detract from how in demand the Intelligent Automation market is.”