Toronto-based customer engagement platform Givex has entered into an agreement that will see it acquired by American commerce payments firm Shift4 Payments.
The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2024.
The all-cash transaction will see Givex’s Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) shareholders receive $1.50 CAD per Givex share, implying an aggregate equity value of $200 million on a fully-diluted basis. BetaKit has reached out to Givex and Shift4 to confirm if there are additional financial considerations as part of the transaction.
The firms announced the agreement Monday morning, with the $1.50 per share price tag representing a 55 percent premium on Givex’s Friday closing price of $0.97. Givex’s share price has fluctuated over the past year, dipping as low as $0.37 per share in September 2023, before steadily increasing prior to the transaction announcement.
Givex is a cloud-based global customer engagement and business insights platform that provides businesses with end-to-end point-of-sale, customer loyalty, and event ticketing tools and analytics.
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Shift4, listed on the New York Stock Exchange, provides a point-of-sale payments processing and gift card solutions platform to retailers, restaurants, casinos, hotels, and more. Shift4 President Taylor Lauber said in a statement that Givex’s “considerable footprint around the world” will dramatically increase Shift4’s customer base and that its gift card and loyalty solutions are “second to none.”
“The Givex Team looks forward to joining the Shift4 family and [bringing] our enterprise gift card capabilities and loyalty programs to hundreds of thousands of new customers,” Givex CEO Don Gray said in a statement. “By combining Shift4’s end-to-end payment solution with our value-added engagement services, we can deliver an unparalleled package to both of our customer bases.”
Givex said it has also granted Shift4 a “right-to-match any superior proposal” provision that allows Shift4 a period of five business days to outbid any potential competitor. Givex will pay $7.75 million to Shift4 if the agreement is terminated under “certain circumstances.”
The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2024, at which point Givex will be delisted from the TSX and will apply to cease to be a reporting issuer under Canadian securities laws.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo by CardMapr.nl.
