(Reuters) -Shares of Britain’s Kape jumped 12.5% on Monday after its top shareholder Teddy Sagi said he would make a sweetened cash offer to buy the digital security and privacy software business, valuing the whole company at about $1.51 billion.
Sagi, the founder of gambling software firm Playtech, owns 54.8% of Kape’s stock and intends to buy the London-listed group’s remaining shares at 285 pence apiece.
The offer price is 9.7% higher than Kape’s last closing price of 260 pence per share on Feb. 10.
Kape urged its shareholders not to take any action on the offer. Its shares were up 12% at 290.5 pence around 0830 GMT, just off an earlier high of 292 pence, suggesting some investors expect a higher offer.
The news comes two months after Kape rejected a 265 pence per share proposal from Sagi as “insufficient”.
Kape, the owner of popular virtual private network service ExpressVPN, reported last month a record annual financial performance for 2022, helped by robust demand for its privacy and security products.
“Having weighed the pros and cons of a public listing under the current macro uncertainties and thin stock market trading as well as new growth avenues, we are firm in our view that Kape’s next chapter in its corporate journey should be within the private arena,” Sagi said in a statement.
Sagi’s Unikmind Holdings, which holds the businessman’s shares in Kape, said it intended to call for a general meeting of Kape to seek to pass a resolution to delist Kape from trading, regardless of the offer’s outcome.
(Reporting by Muhammed Husain in Bengaluru; Editing by Subhranshu Sahu and Mark Potter)
