Pushpay trade halted pending announcement

Pushpay Holdings entered a trading halt yesterday pending an announcement from the dual-listed software company.

This month, Pushpay halted trading of its shares to confirm speculation that it had received a takeover offer from a group of shareholders, without giving any details, saying it was weighing up whether it was in the best interests of all shareholders.

At the time it was being reported that BGH Capital, which has a 20 per cent stake in Pushpay, was thought to have made a revised bid worth more than $1.2 billion. At yesterday’s price of $1.19, Pushpay is valued at $1.14b. Pushpay said the latest halt will last until it makes an announcement, or trading opens on Monday.

In May — when shares were at $1.41 — the company said it was at an early stage of dealing with unsolicited takeover approaches, but had not entered into any agreements.

That followed an earlier announcement when it said it had received unsolicited, nonbinding and conditional expressions of interest or approaches from third parties looking to acquire the company. The board appointed Goldman Sachs to assist as financial adviser.

Since April, it had received additional interest from multiple parties, Pushpay said in May.

A local shareholder has also been building its stake. On September 22, ACC filed notice that it had increased its Pushpay holding from 5 to 6 per cent.

BGH Capital’s investment vehicle, Oceania Trust, and international investor Sixth Street’s entities together own 20.3 per cent of Pushpay. New Zealand law generally prevents groups from building a stake above the 20 per cent threshold without making a takeover bid.

Sixth Street is headquartered in San Francisco but bills itself as a global investment firm with US$50b (NZ$77.4b) in assets under management.