An activist investor has scuppered the mooted £287 million US takeover of CAB Payments.
The FinTech said today it is ‘deeply concerned’ that shareholder Helios Consortium will reject the 10 pence-per-share offer from American payments giant StoneX as it pursues its own £213m bid.
Fortune 500 firm StoneX, 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”.
Then last week CAB said that it was recommending the fresh StoneX offer for 110p per share in cash, which 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 was 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.
However Helios stated late on Friday: ”The Helios Consortium confirms it has carefully evaluated the StoneX proposal and concluded that it will not provide such an irrevocable undertaking or otherwise support or accept the StoneX proposal.
“The Helios Consortium continues to work towards the satisfaction of the regulatory conditions set out in the Helios offer announcement.”
CAB responded today: “The independent board is disappointed by the Helios Consortium’s announcement.
“The independent board is deeply concerned that the Helios Consortium’s position in respect of the StoneX final possible offer is depriving minority shareholders of the opportunity to realise value at a recommendable price and at a significant premium to the Helios Consortium’s firm offer.”
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.
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