The founder of essensys plc has been successful with his bid to take the PropTech firm private.
A vehicle led by Mark Furness (pictured) and backed by high-profile investors Sir Terry Leahy and William Currie recently agreed an £11.3 million deal with the independent board of essensys plc.
The offer of 17 pence per share was below the 20p/£13m price mooted when it was first revealed that Furness was preparing a potential bid in late November 2025; however it represents a premium of approximately 9.7% to the closing price per essensys share of 15.5p at that time.
Furness is essensys plc’s largest shareholder while the vehicle held 37% of its share capital. This morning the firm stated that the vehicle had secured agreement from the holders of 98% of its shares, declaring the offer unconditional.
“Bidco (the vehicle) will have significant control over essensys and will be in a position to ensure the approval or rejection of ordinary and special resolutions of essensys and to determine its overall direction,” it stated.
“Following the offer being declared wholly unconditional, each of Jon Lee and Sian Herbert, the independent non-executive chairman and independent non-executive director of essensys, respectively, has resigned from the essensys board with immediate effect.”
essensys said a date would be set to cancel its shares on the London Stock Exchange’s junior AIM market and re-register as a private company.
Furness founded the firm in 2006 and it floated in 2019 at a valuation of £72.6m, raising £28m from investors. Its share price peaked above 300p in 2021.
Based in London with operations in New York, Sydney and Amsterdam, essensys is a software and cloud service provider for the flexible workspace industry.
Amid a restructuring of the business, essensys – now led by James Lowery – recently reported shrinking profits and falling revenues in its latest half-year results.
essensys said it had implemented restructuring to enable greater focus on its essensys platform and elumo, a new dynamic booking and access control platform for meeting rooms in flexible workspaces, co-working spaces and office buildings.
Lowery said recently: “We have restructured the business to provide greater focus across our two core products, transformed our customer support function and successfully delivered the first cohort of elumo customers.
“Alongside this, we have maintained a disciplined approach to capital allocation and operational efficiency while continuing to invest in the development of our solutions. These actions have established a solid foundation for future growth.
“The period has also seen the recommended cash offer for the company from our founder Mark Furness. The independent directors believe that this offer will facilitate clear strategic and operational benefits for essensys’s internal and external stakeholders, including the employees and customers of essensys and provides a fair and reasonable value and a certain exit opportunity for shareholders.”
Founder agrees deal to take essensys private as profits shrink