CAB Payments has received an increased £287 million takeover offer from American payments giant StoneX – but any deal will require the blessing of substantial activist investor Helios Consortium.
The Fortune 500 firm, listed on New York’s Nasdaq exchange, had previously seen a £241m bid rejected by CAB’s independent board of directors, which does not include Helios.
Prior to that CAB’s independent board rejected two rival takeovers from Helios – the latter for £213m. After the previous StoneX offer of 95 pence per share was rejected, Helios accused the independent board – which does not include Nitin Kaul and Henry Obi CBE, who represent the interests of Helios – of acting against the interests of shareholders.
In retaliation, CAB accused Helios of “launching an unsolicited firm offer for CAB Payments at an unrecommendable value” which it said was “highly opportunistic”.
This morning CAB said that it was recommending the fresh StoneX offer, which is for 110p per share in cash and represents a premium of 52% to CAB’s closing share price of 72p on 30th January 2026, the last business day before the Helios Consortium first announced a possible offer.
The offer is subject to satisfactory completion of due diligence, as well as irrevocable undertakings to support the transaction from each CAB Payments director, the members of the Helios Consortium who own or control company shares and Eurocomm Holding Limited.
“The independent board encourages the Helios Consortium to engage constructively with the company and StoneX in relation to the increased final possible offer, which represents a 29% premium to the Helios Consortium’s firm offer,” stated CAB.
CAB floated in 2023 with a market cap of £851m but has endured a torrid time as a listed company. Its share price plummeted more than 70% in the first three months of public trading.
StoneX has approximately 5,400 employees and serves more than 80,000 commercial, institutional, and global payments clients, and more than 400,000 retail accounts, from more than 80 offices spread across five continents.
Before trading opens this morning, CAB Payments has a share price of 90p and market cap of around £229m.