A Dutch private equity investor is trying to gatecrash the emergency sale of Argentex Group, a London-listed currency management firm caught in the financial crossfire of Donald Trump’s tariffs crusade.
Sky News has learnt that Haerlem Capital has approached the board of Argentex with a proposal that would see it injecting £5m in exchange for a 50% stake in the company.
Haerlem Capital has also offered to provide a £15m funding line to Argentex as part of the deal, according to people close to the situation.
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Sources said the approach had been rebuffed because it was deemed unworkable in the context of a sale of the whole company, which has already been agreed to IFX Payments.
Argentex shareholders are scheduled to vote on the IFX deal on Wednesday.
In April, Argentex, whose clients include the FTSE 100 insurer Aviva, asset manager Barings, and Triumph Motorcycles, said it had been “exposed to significant volatility in foreign exchange rates, particularly in relation to the rapid devaluing of the US Dollar against other major benchmark currencies which has been precipitated by the various recent announcements from President Trump regarding tariff policies and US government spending cuts”.
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The company was forced into emergency sale talks, with its board ultimately succeeding in securing a deal on a solvent basis – albeit at a steeply discounted price
It announced late last month that it had drawn down £6.4m of a £20m revolving credit facility provided by IFX Payments.
“These drawn amounts are in addition to the £10.5m secured bridging loan provided by IFX Payments and have been applied to ensure that the Company remains within its liquid assets threshold requirement (LATR) and to satisfy certain margin calls from its liquidity providers,” it said.
Argentex floated on London’s junior AIM market in 2019, and counts Lord Jones, the former CBI boss, among its board members.
Shares in the company, which recently resumed trading on the junior AIM stock market, were changing hands for about 2.5p on Monday morning, giving Argentex a market capitalisation of just under £3m.
A spokesperson for Argentex declined to comment on the approach from Haerlem Capital.
