Route Mobile shares close 8% lower after promoters sell entire stake to Proximus Opal for Rs 5,922 crore

Shares of Route Mobile closed 8.5 per cent lower on Monday after the company announced that its promoters entered into a deal with the Proximus Group to sell their entire 57.56 per cent stake.  

In a filing to the stock exchanges, Route Mobile said that Proximus Group will acquire 57.56 per cent of the shares in Route Mobile through Proximus Opal, for an initial  Rs 5,922.4 crore (EUR 643 million) cash consideration for a price of Rs 1,626.40 per share.  

The promoters will sell their entire 3.64 crore equity shares to Proximus, the company said.

“The agreement consists of the acquisition by Proximus Opal of a controlling stake in Route Mobile from the founding shareholders of the company, followed by a reinvestment by some of the founding Route Mobile shareholders into Proximus Opal,” the stock exchange filing added.  

Proximus Opal is a subsidiary of Belgium-based Proximus Group.

Proximus Opal to reinvest post transaction

According to the deal, Proximus Opal will make an open offer to acquire 26 percent of the increased voting share capital of Route Mobile from the public shareholders, subject to statutory approvals. The total value of the open offer is pegged at Rs 2,675 crore at Rs 1,626.4 per share.  

The acquisition of the majority stake in Route Mobile will be followed by a reinvestment by some of the founding shareholders of Route Mobile, for up to 14.5 per cent of the shares of Proximus Opal, the company said. The next cash consideration for Proximum post reinvestment stands at Euro 343.4 million.

Morgan Stanley was the financial advisor to Proximus for this deal. The acquisition makes the combined entity the third-largest payer in the communications platform-as-a-service (CPaaS) provider in the world in terms of messaging volumes, according to the official release.

Following the disclosure of the deal, shares of Route Mobile surged over 8 percent in intraday trade to hit a fresh 52-week high of Rs 1759.50 per share.

Shares of Route Mobile closed 8.5 percent lower at Rs 1,486.35 apiece on BSE on Monday.