Fallen digital star’s takeover dispute

THE biggest shareholder at fallen tech star Monitise has hit out at a planned £70m takeover by US business Fiserv.

Cavendish Asset Management owns 4.8pc of the company – and fund manager Paul Mumford has warned that the suitor’s offer was too low.

If he can rally enough support it could throw the takeover into doubt.

Monitise pioneered payments using a mobile phone, and was worth £2bn back in 2014.

But the stock dived after Google and Apple swooped into the market and the share price has crashed 96pc.

Bosses at the firm have backed the offer of 2.9p per share from finance tech firm Fiserv, a Wisconsin-based company. But Mumford said Monitise’s long decline masked a successful business worth much more than £70m, saying: ‘Its Finkit offering [a new IT platform it has developed] is solid and has real potential.’