IP Group has £500m offer for rival rejected
IP Group has had a £500m bid for rival Touchstone Innovations rejected.
However the intellectual property commercialisation group says it has support from Touchstone shareholders representing more than half of its share capital in the form of irrevocable undertakings and letters of intent.
IP Group said it “looks forward to further engagement” with Touchstone regarding the bid, which values Touchstone at 307p per share. The offer is for 2.1490 IP Group shares for each Touchstone share, and shares in IP Group closed last night at 143p.
In a statement, IP Group said combining the two businesses “would create an international leader in IP commercialisation and an enlarged business with substantial capabilities that would be greater than the sum of the two parts”.
Separately IP Group – which has backed University of Leeds spin-outs Tracsis, Tissue Regenix and Xeros, plus University of Sheffield spin-out Diurnal Group – has also announced plans to raise £200m.
It said the fundraising and the acquisition are not contigent on the other happening. Two-thirds of the fundraising is being underwritten by Numis.
IP Group is also launching IP Group Australia, a wholly-owned private company incorporated in the State of Victoria, Australia, focused on the creation and support of world changing companies in Australia and New Zealand.
It has entered into commercialisation agreements with nine Australian and New Zealand research universities – the “Go9 Universities”. It plans to form spin-out companies based on disruptive IP developed in such universities.
