SS&C agrees to buy UK's Blue Prism

Blue Prism's CEO is excited about new R&D possibilities

American fintech firm SS&C has agreed to acquire British software firm Blue Prism, in a £1.2 billion offer, following months of rival bidding with private equity firm Vista.

As reported by Reuters, SS&C's all-cash offer of 1,275 pence per Blue Prism share is higher than its earlier bid of 1,200 pence, and also above Vista's final offer of 1,250 pence.

Blue Prism's directors now intend to recommend that shareholders vote in favour of SS&C's offer.

Blue Prism CEO Jason Kingdon said the merger with SS&C will offer his company access to "significant capital resources and investment in R&D alongside access to SS&C's extensive 18,000 customers".

SS&C promised to maintain Blue Prism's British headquarters as a UK robotic process automation (RPA) centre.

Founded in 2001, London-listed Blue Prism is best known as one of the originators of RPA, along with rivals UiPath and Automation Anywhere. The firm has over 2,000 customers, including Fortune 500 companies.

But recently the company has run into financial problems, leading to the departure of founder and then-CEO Alastair Bathgate as the firm set about raising £100 million in a stock sale in April 2020.

Blue Prism has seen the value of its shares drop by a third this year, because of worries that it was falling behind its competitors.

In December last year, Blue Prism said it was reviewing a potential 1,200 pence-a-share offer from SS&C, which improved on an earlier bid from Vista at 1,125 pence a share. Vista then increased its bid to a final recommended cash offer of 1250 pence per share, which Blue Prism agreed to in September.

Vista said that once the acquisition is completed, it would merge Blue Prism with enterprise data management firm Tibco, which it bought in 2014.

Blue Prism investors, however, expressed concern over the proposed acquisition, arguing that the offer represented poor value for shareholders and a huge discount to competitors.

Coast Capital, which owns a 2.8 per cent stake in Blue Prism, objected to Vista's revised offer, saying it undervalued the firm. It then encouraged other investors to vote against the deal.

Last month, Coast Capital said it backed the possible offer from SS&C in mid-November.

"We believe that the bid by SS&C for Blue Prism will, if successful, help transform SS&C into the clear tech leader (and therefore services leader) in the fund admin space," Coast Capital Founding Partner James Rasteh told CNBC.

"This is a visionary move and is indicative of a visionary management team."