Onevue worth more: analysts

IRESS trading screens. Picture: AAP

Analysts at Bell Potter are suggesting wealth manager Onevue Holdings may be justified in pushing for a higher takeover bid from its suitor Iress, backing the view of major shareholder Thorney Investments, which plans to reject the current offer from the financial software business.

In June Iress launched a takeover bid of Onevue Holdings at 40c a share, a 66.7 per cent premium on the company‘s then price of 24c a share.

In July, Thorney lifted its stake in Onevue of 17.09 per cent to almost 18 per cent, in what some believe to be an attempt to block an insufficiently priced takeover.

Since June, the price of Onevue shares has increased to 39 cents.

Analysts at Bell Potter observed that while this represented a gain of 63 per cent since the start of June, comparative listed financial technology and wealth management companies like Netwealth Group and Hub24 have seen their share price increase on average by about 50 per cent without the obvious benefits of an acquisition premium.

They also thought that with action at the “big end of town”, like IOOF‘s bid for MLC, there were opportunities for independent wealth management companies to disrupt the market.

Accordingly, it has concluded that Onevue could push for a higher purchase price than Iress‘s $107m valuation and has revised the target price to 44 cents a share, a 10 per cent premium on the previous target and on Iress’s takeover offer.

On Monday Iress informed the market that the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission had decided it would not oppose any takeover of OneVue.

A scheme meeting will be held by Iress on October 9