Xchanging share price finishes down, as company urges shareholders to back Computer Sciences Corporation offer by Friday
Outsourcing company Xchanging today called on its shareholders to accept a takeover offer from Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) by Friday, as it warned that it could not be confident it would receive a better offer from insurance software company Ebix.
In December last year, CSC made a cash offer to purchase Xchanging for 190p per share, worth about £480m.
The offer was agreed on by Xchanging’s board of directors and, at the time, it was said the deal was expected to close within six months.
However, if CSC’s deal does not receive at least 75 per cent approval from shareholders by 1pm on Friday, then the US-listed information technology company could choose to let its offer expire rather than extend it.
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Xchanging advised its shareholders that, if CSC’s deal lapses and Ebix does not make a subsequent offer, then they could lose to opportunity to sell the company.
Share price in the company finished down 0.9 per cent for the day at 190p.
CSC’s pre-Christmas offer beat out a bid of 160p per share from outsourcing giant Capita, which had also shown an interest in purchasing the company.
When the acceptance of the CSC offer was announced, Xchanging’s share price jumped up by 9 per cent to 194.5p, which was the highest the shares had traded at in the last five years.