Quantile Capital Acquires a Rival: Accretive or Not?

Finance
medium55 min0 submissions
Razorpay
Scenario

Quantile Capital (asset management, UK) is considering acquiring a smaller competitor.

Acquirer. Net income of £119 M, 132 million shares outstanding, trading at £63 per share. Current EPS is therefore £0.90.

Target. Net income of £32 M, currently valued by the market at £1083 M. The board expects to pay a 24% premium to that price.

Management projects £34 M of annual run-rate synergies, roughly 79% of which are cost synergies from overlapping sales and back-office functions, with the remainder from cross-selling. One-time integration costs are estimated at £28 M.

The deal would be financed with debt at 7.4%. The marginal tax rate is 25%.

Supporting data

deal

tax rate pct
25
debt rate pct
7.4
integration cost m
28
run rate synergies m
34

target

premium pct
24
net income m
32
market value m
1083

acquirer

eps
0.9
share price
63
net income m
119
shares outstanding
132
Your task

Advise the board on whether to proceed. Provide:

  1. Analysis — accretion/dilution to EPS in year one and at full synergy run-rate.
  2. Risks — what would make this deal destroy value.
  3. Recommendation — proceed, renegotiate, or walk. Specify price and structure.
Ready to move forward? Up next: Solstice Travel: Is This Target Growing, or Just Floating?Next question
How you'll be graded

100 points, 60% to pass.

  • deal analysis25
  • recommendation25
  • risk assessment25
  • synergy assessment25
Hint
Reveal suggested structure
  1. Purchase price = market value × (1 + premium).
  2. Financing cost = purchase price × debt rate, then after tax.
  3. Combined earnings = acquirer + target + after-tax synergies − after-tax interest.
  4. Combined EPS = combined earnings ÷ share count (unchanged in an all-cash deal).
  5. Compare against standalone EPS. Do this for year 1 (partial synergies, integration costs) and steady state.
  6. Sanity check the price against the target's standalone value.