Hargreaves Lansdown to leave London listing behind as it backs £5.4 billion private equity bid

Hargreaves Lansdown backed the £5.4 billion bid for the FTSE 100 fund manager today from a private equity consortium, a deal that will end its time as a listed company. 

The Bristol-based finance firm has been listed in London since 2007. It said today that the final offer valued its shares at 1140p in cash and would include a 30p per share dividend for the financial year which ended on 30 June.

Compared to the Hargreaves Lansdown share price before the approach was first made in April, the price is at a premium of over 54%. 

The consortium is made up of CVC, Nordic Capital and ADIA.

Hargreaves Lansdown is named after its founders – Peter Hargreaves and Stephen Lansdown – who set it up as an investment tip sheet. It now runs a state-of-the-art trading platform from which clients can run their own portfolios and pensions. 

It now has around 1.9 million customers .

Peter Hargreaves still owns 20% of the firm, which has £155 billion in assets under management. Stephen Lansdown owns around 6%.

The directors of Hargreaves Lansdown were advised by Fenchurch, Barclays, Deutsche Numis and Morgan Stanley.

Today was the deadline for HL to back the bid, or walk away from doing so, after it was extended following the consortium’s approach.

The firm also published its latest annual results today, for the year to the end of June.

Assets under management rose 16% to just over £155 billion and it added 78,000 clients in the period.

Profit before tax fell 2% to £396.3 million.

Dan Olley, chief executive officer, appointed in August 2023, called it an “eventful first 12 months,  not least with the approach ”, adding:

“As I made clear on joining, we need to help more people across the UK save and invest to secure their financial future, so for us this is more than a mission, it’s an obligation. I have therefore been reassured during process that the consortium are aligned with our mission.”

HL’s shares rose toward the price of the bid today, up over 21p to 1098p, a rise of 2%.