NCC agrees £55m deal for Accumuli
IT SECURITY company NCC Group has strengthened its armoury with the acquisition of AIM-listed Accumuli in a recommended cash and shares deal.
Manchester-based NCC is paying £55m for the independent IT security and risk management business, which has offices in Basingstoke, Cambridge and Leeds.
So far investors holding 57.7% of shares in Accumuli have acccepted the offer, though NCC needs to get to 75% before the deal is unconditional. The AIM company said in a separate trading update it was seeing strong demand and annual revenues for the year to March 31 would rise from £16.6m to £27m.
Under the terms of the deal, Accumuli shareholders will receive 0.1218 new NCC Group shares and 5.97p in cash.
The acquisition values each Accumuli share at around 32.8p, and Accumuli’s at approximately £55m, based on the closing price per NCC Group share on Monday March 23, the last business day before the deal was revealed.
NCC’s offer represents a premium of approximately 19.1% to the closing price per Accumuli share of 27.5p on Monday and 22.7% to the six-month average price per Accumuli share of 26.7p in the six-months to Monday.
Rob Cotton, chief executive of NCC Group said: “The addition of Accumuli will enable us to provide a wider and more comprehensive range of security solutions and services.
“In this dynamic and rapidly growing international market, customers are now looking for the type of 24/7 operational security support and incident management offered by Accumuli in addition to our consulting capabilities. Accumuli is notably aligned with us in the security space and brings valuable new capabilities and will enable us to expand our development teams.
“We have already been bidding jointly together on a number of projects, and with Accumuli as part of the group, we will be able to bid for complex projects in a sole capacity. The acquisition provides an opportunity to develop our core consulting business across a wider customer base.
“This earnings enhancing acquisition is another important step in our ambition to provide a comprehensive package of security solutions and services – our customers’ need for an organisation with a wider range of cybersecurity capabilities continues to grow.”
Nick Kingsbury, non-executive chairman of Accumuli added: “The Accumuli board is pleased to recommend this acquisition, and feels that the structure of the offer should allow Accumuli shareholders to benefit from the potential advantages of the two businesses combining. The deal should also be highly beneficial to our existing customer base.”
NCC was advised by Manchester-based corporate finance house Rickitt Mitchell.
