Findex to buy Crowe Horwath; Telstra completes $1 billion share buyback: Midday Roundup

Findex Australia has entered into an agreement to purchase fellow accounting firm Crowe Horwath, according to a joint statement from the companies.

The acquisition, to be completed via s Scheme of Arrangement, will involve Findex offering Crowe Horwath shareholders 50 cents per share, valuing the company at $137 million.

The Crowe Horwath board has recommended the takeover bid to shareholders, pending the results of an independent evaluation of the deal.

“After careful consideration, the board has unanimously concluded that the proposal from Findex is a compelling value proposition offering Crowe Horwath shareholders a significant premium to the market price and fair value,” Crowe Horwath chairman Richard Grellman said.

As part of the proposal, Crowe Horwath majority owner Alceon has agreed to give Findex the option of purchasing its 19.87% shareholding at the same price of 50 cents per share.

Telstra completes $1 billion share buyback

Telstra shareholders were keen to offload their stocks according to the telco, which said it had to scale back its $1 billion off-market share buyback because it was oversubscribed.

Business Spectator reports the buyback was completed at the maximum discount to the market price, with the price set at $4.60 per share. This represents a 14% discount to the market price of $5.34, which was announced last week.

The buyback means Telstra has bought back 1.75% of the company’s issued shares, or around 217.4 million shares.

Telstra announced it would conduct the buyback in August as a way of returning surplus capital to shareholders.

Shares down on open

Aussie shares took a tumble this morning, before regaining some value but not returning to Friday’s closing.

The S&P/ASX200 benchmark was down 18.6 points to 5299.6 points at 12.08pm AEST. On Friday, the Dow Jones closed 208.64 points stronger, up 1.24% to 17009.7 points.