The last day of share trading in FD Technologies, the Newry-based data and analytics company, will be Friday, after Northern Ireland’s high court rubber-stamped its £541.6 million (€626 million) sale to US private equity firm TA Associates.
The structure of the deal, by way of a so-called scheme of arrangement, required sanctioning from the court after it was approved by FD Technologies shareholders at the end of June.
FD Technologies said in a statement that it expects dealing on the stock to end on Friday afternoon in Dublin and London. The company is on track to be officially delisted next Tuesday.
The company’s remaining business is KX, which analyses large data sets in real time to help companies predict and respond to market conditions across the various business areas.
RM Block
FD Technologies’ board urged that shareholders support the TA Associates deal, saying that the operation may be hampered by “uncertain public markets” if it needs to accelerate investment to capture opportunities in artificial intelligence (AI).
The deal with TA Associates, first announced in May, follows a big restructuring at the Dublin-listed company last year.
This led to the group selling its former core First Derivatives division to US software group EPAM in a £236.1 million transaction and the spin-off of another business, called MRP, into a merger. It subsequently returned £120 million to shareholders in January through a stock buyback deal.
