The Australian-listed share registrar Computershare is among a pack of suitors circling PrimaryBid, one of the most prominent British fintech businesses to be established during the last decade.
Sky News has learnt that Computershare has expressed an interest in acquiring PrimaryBid, which was put up for sale earlier this year.
PrimaryBid, which counts London Stock Exchange Group and the SoftBank Vision Fund among its investors, has drawn interest from a large number of parties, including investment banks and market infrastructure providers, according to insiders.
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The company was founded with a simple vision to help ordinary investors gatecrash the closed City ranks of corporate fundraisings and flotations by aggregating demand from retail shareholders into a single, enlarged order.
That mission to democratise access to public markets won support from politicians and market participants.
It made significant progress towards this goal during the pandemic, notably securing a slice of a £2bn share sale announced by Compass Group, the FTSE 100 contract caterer.
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Since then, it has worked on hundreds of deals and helped raise roughly $2bn in equity for listed companies.
However, it has been hit by a severe slowdown in equity capital markets activity, prompting it to launch a strategic review and hire US-based market infrastructure specialist Rosenblatt Securities to evaluate its strategic options.
PrimaryBid has been facing the weakest IPO market in years, which it has been attempting to mitigate by striking partnerships with the likes of US fintech group SoFi, as well as European groups.
It has now reshaped its UK operations and stepped back from regulated activities, having for several months explored a deal with LSEG, one of its largest shareholders, to license its retail capital-raising technology.
For some time, the company was chaired by Sir Donald Brydon, the veteran businessman who also used to chair the stock exchange’s parent company.
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Earlier this year, LSEG wrote down the value of its 7.2% stake in PrimaryBid by 87%, implying that the business now had a valuation of just £56m.
Computershare’s interest in a deal is said to be exploratory, with many other prospective bidders at a similar stage.
A Computershare spokesman said: “We do not comment on market speculation.”
PrimaryBid declined to comment.
