FitzWalter Capital has made a final offer to buy Auction Technology Group and slammed the company for failing to grant it access to conduct due diligence.
On 16th January 2026, FitzWalter announced that it was considering making an offer at a price of 400 pence in cash per ATG share after its previous 12 bids were rejected.
With a deadline of 5pm on 2nd February for any firm and final offer fast approaching, FitzWalter said the financial terms would not be improved.
“It is uncontroversial to say that a potential buyer who is not able to conduct due diligence will be constrained in their bidding in comparison with a buyer who is,” said Andrew Gray, partner at FitzWalter Capital.
“If FitzWalter are not able to access diligence in relation to ATG, it is shareholders who will ultimately miss out.”
ATG, which owns 10 marketplaces and connects auction houses with bidders globally, took aim at its largest shareholder last week after releasing quarterly results.
FitzWalter, headquartered in London, responded by saying that following discussions with a number of fellow ATG shareholders, it believes that there is inconsistent information between certain shareholders. It had previously accused the ATG board of ‘extreme value destruction’.
ATG had been seeking instead to dispose of its industrial and commercial division (I&C) business, which enables the sale of machinery such as tractors and was responsible for circa 45% of its FY25 profits. FitzWalter had slammed the decision to not run a formal sales process around the disposal.
Last week ATG confirmed that it had received preliminary expressions of interest to acquire the division, but that these did not progress beyond initial discussions.
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FitzWalter has also criticised ATG’s $100m acquisition of US marketplace Chairish, highlighting $15m of transaction and integration costs and renewing its view that the deal damaged shareholder value.
Andrew Gray, partner at FitzWalter Capital, said last week that the rejection of its latest offer “continues the board’s pattern of failing to engage with FitzWalter in any meaningful way… instead, the board continues to pursue its own agenda, despite the c.44% share price decline in the period following the Chairish acquisition and corresponding destruction of shareholder value over which it has presided”.
However for the three-month period ended 31st December 2025, ATG reported positive trading with pro forma constant currency revenue growth of 7.2%.
Chairish delivered good pro forma revenue growth in the period, it said, with operational synergies on track to deliver an annual run rate of $8m.
ATG insisted last week that it is time for FitzWalter “either to make a proposal which reflects full and fair value, or otherwise allow the business to dedicate its full focus and resources on the execution of its strategy”.