Today, Bytes has been admitted to the premium listing segment of the official list of the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority, to unconditional trading on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange, and the Main Board of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange by way of a secondary inward listing.
This marks the completion of the demerger of the Bytes group from the Altron Group, a transaction which Altron announced to the market in April 2020. The achieved price of £2.70 per Bytes ordinary share results in a market capitalisation at the Issue Price of approximately £647-million (about R13 billion) on Admission. The Issue Price was in the top half of the previously communicated price range of £2.40 to £2.90 per Bytes ordinary share.
Approximately 40% of the Bytes ordinary shares are distributed to existing Altron shareholders and the remaining shares are held by investors located outside South Africa, and Bytes management.
As a result of the demerger of Bytes, Altron shareholders will receive, after tax and transaction costs, a consideration of approximately £542-million (about R10,9-billion) in the form of Bytes ordinary shares and cash. If this is combined with Altron’s current market capitalisation, excluding Bytes, of approximately R3,9-billion, Altron shareholders hold approximately R14,8-billion of value in Altron shares, Bytes shares and cash.
Prior to Altron announcing the demerger on 2 April 2020, Altron’s market capitalisation was approximately R7,3-billion – through this transaction Altron has created over R7-billion of value for its shareholders. A shareholder who has held Altron shares from the time of the initial announcement to the completion of the demerger would have seen the value of their holding double. On the same basis, there has been almost a fivefold increase in shareholder value since the announcement in December 2016 of the investment by Value Capital Partners (VCP) and the changes announced to the Altron Board followed by the appointment of Mteto Nyati as CEO in April 2017.
The demerger of Bytes tops a multi-year turnaround for Altron where management has consistently delivered on what it has promised to shareholders.
Through this demerger Altron has demonstrated its ability to create significant value for shareholders with the execution of this highly complex transaction.
Mike Leeming, chairman of the Altron Board, says: “We are very proud of this attractive outcome for Altron shareholders. I would like to specifically thank Neil Murphy and Keith Richardson and the rest of the Bytes management team who have stealthily and patiently over many years built a well-positioned and fast-growing business in the UK.
“I would also like to thank the Altron Board for supporting this transaction from the beginning and in particular Value Capital Partners for initiating this process of significant value unlock.
“Lastly the execution of this highly complex, multi-jurisdictional transaction would not have been possible without the support and hard work of the senior Altron management team and the various transaction advisors across both South Africa and the UK.”
With the Bytes demerger now complete Altron will continue to focus on its remaining businesses and drive the growth strategy it has communicated to the market. Altron 2.0 is a R7 billion revenue business with a strong balance sheet and exciting prospects as it continues to leverage the growing need for digital transformation and data.
Mteto Nyati, CEO of Altron, says: “With our purpose of delivering innovation that matters, and a set of highly differentiated technology solutions, including telematics, health and financial services platforms, cloud services, data analytics, artificial intelligence and various security offerings we look forward to delivering strong earnings growth over the next five years. In addition, we will continue to look for opportunities to further unlock value for our shareholders.
“We also wish our colleagues and friends at Bytes luck for the future and are really looking forward to seeing all they will achieve”