Next Fifteen Communications Group PLC (AIM:NFC) confirmed its agreed M&C Saatchi PLC (AIM:SAA) takeover offer is final and won't be raised.
M&C Saatchi is also facing a rival bid from AdvancedAdvT insisting and said on Monday its offer for the London-based advertising agency was worth more than Next Fifteen’s.
On 20 May, M&C accepted Next Fifteen’s bid of £310.1mln after rejecting AdvancedAdvT’s a week earlier.
Gareth Davis, chair of M&C Saatchi, said at the time: “The M&C Saatchi independent directors all consider Next Fifteen's offer to be far superior to the offer announced earlier this week by ADV, and a clear repudiation of ADV's response statement that it strongly disagreed its bid undervalued M&C Saatchi.”
Saatchi shareholders will receive 0.1637 of a Next Fifteen share and 40p in cash, which equated to approximately 247.2p per share.
The offer is a 47.6% premium to the Saatchi closing price of 167.5p on 4 January 2022, being the last day prior to ADV's announcement of its acquisition of a minority stake, and 25% more than Thursday’s price of 197.8p.
Next Fifteen said in a statement that the combination would establish a “truly global platform in the digital marketing and consulting sectors, a platform that leverages top-flight creativity, technology, data, business consulting and digital marketing to deliver meaningful change for the enlarged client base.”
M&C was changing hands 2.1% lower just before close on Thursday, while Next Fifteen was down 2.8%.