13th Mar 2019 10:12
LONDON (Alliance News) - Visa Inc on Wednesday said it has received acceptances of its offer to buy cross-border payments platform Earthport PLC representing 267.7 million shares, equal to a 41.02% stake.
The offer period has been extended to April 30, Visa, which urged the remaining Earthport shareholders to accept it, said.
Following completion of the takeover, Visa plans to cancel Earthport's shares from their AIM Market listing.
In December, Visa initially made a bid of 30 pence per Earthport share, which was then agreed. However, in late January, Mastercard Inc came in with its own offer at 33p.
Visa upped its offer to 37p per share in February, which valued Earthport at around GBP247 million. The new figure was 12% above Mastercard's offer and 23% higher than the original Visa bid.
Shares in Earthport were trading down 0.3% at 36.30 pence on Wednesday morning.