Crownpeak Holdings will acquire Attraqt Group for £63.2 million

LONDON, UK: Aegean Bidco Limited, an indirect wholly-owned subsidiary of Crownpeak Holdings LLC, has agreed to acquire Attraqt Group plc at the rate of 30 pence in cash per Attraqt Share. The acquisition values the entire issued and to be issued share capital of Attraqt Group at approximately £63.2 million.

Reasons for the Acquisition:

• Crownpeak Holdings believes Attraqt Group to be an excellent fit for its investment and strategic criteria, based on Attraqt’s strong position in attractive markets, technology-led business model, and multiple levers for future value creation.
• Attraqt has a leading position in delivering omni-channel AI-powered search, merchandising, and recommendation software to the eCommerce sector. The business is backed by a strong leadership team, which has successfully managed the business through a series of recent strategic acquisitions in order to enhance and consolidate its market position.
• Crownpeak believes that the combination of Crownpeak’s leading Digital Experience Platform and Attraqt’s AI-powered search, merchandising and recommendation software for eCommerce will provide existing and future customers significant value and achieve scale that will enable continued innovation of market-leading solutions that enable customers to provide optimal digital experiences for end consumers.
• The Acquisition also brings Crownpeak greater scale in the United Kingdom and European markets, and Crownpeak believes that Attraqt presents a platform from which to grow its geographic reach, with both regions being key strategic focus areas of both organic and future acquisitive growth for Crownpeak.
• Finally, Crownpeak also believes that in order to maximise its future potential, Attraqt would be better suited to a private company environment, where initiatives to improve the performance of the business can be implemented effectively, with appropriate support, capital and assistance from Crownpeak, free from the requirement to meet the public equity market’s shorter-term reporting requirements and expectations, and the costs, constraints and distractions associated with being a publicly traded company.

Aegean Bidco has been incorporated under the laws of England and Wales for the purposes of the Acquisition. It has not traded since its incorporation. Bidco is an indirect, wholly-owned subsidiary of Crownpeak.

Founded in 2001, Crownpeak empowers its customers to effortlessly orchestrate digital experiences. Crownpeak’s cloud-native SaaS Digital Experience Platform (DXP) enables over 1,000 market-leading brands to deliver personalised digital experiences across all content channels through enterprise-grade content management. Customers can compose, manage, deliver, and optimise digital experiences over all channels.

For Marketers and the IT teams that support Marketing, the Crownpeak DXP provides content creation, management, and delivery scalability to enterprises – delivering the right content across all devices and platforms to millions of global visitors.

By providing a consistent omni-channel experience across all brands, customers can grow loyalty, increase eCommerce revenues, and deepen personalised engagement with their consumers, partners, and employees.

Approximately 93.5 per cent of Crownpeak’s issued share capital is owned by funds managed or advised by K1 Investment Management and its affiliates, and approximately 6.5 per cent of Crownpeak’s issued share capital is owned by funds managed or advised by Trinity Alps Capital Partners.

K1 Investment Management is a leading private investment firm focused solely on enterprise software, with over $13 billion of assets under management and having completed over 200 investments.

Commenting on the Acquisition, Jonah Paransky, CEO of Crownpeak, said: “The combination of Attraqt with Crownpeak now provides the opportunity to combine market-leading digital experience platform (DXP) capabilities with AI-powered search, merchandising and recommendations for eCommerce. Customers can now realise a unified approach to drive content-driven commerce experiences to all digital channels.”

Commenting on the Acquisition, Tom Crawford, Chairman of Attraqt, said: “We are proud of the significant progress that Attraqt has made over the last few years, particularly since the acquisition of Fredhopper in 2017, and Early Birds more recently in 2019. Whilst we remain excited about the prospects for the business on a standalone basis, we have been in discussions with Crownpeak and received a proposal that we believe is compelling for all of our stakeholders.

We are pleased that Crownpeak is supportive of the acceleration of Attraqt’s existing strategy and believe that Attraqt will benefit from Crownpeak’s approach to value creation, and with K1 Investment Management, their combined experience in successfully building high-growth businesses fulfilling their potential. As a result of the Acquisition, we believe Attraqt will be both nimbler in executing its strategy and able to build a business capable of sustainable longer-term growth, with stronger operating leverage and profitability.

Having carefully considered the range of options available to Attraqt Group, including the terms of the proposed Acquisition, the Attraqt Board has concluded that the Acquisition, which offers certainty of cash value to the Attraqt Shareholders, is in the best interests of Attraqt, its shareholders and wider stakeholders, and as such are unanimously recommending the Acquisition to shareholders.”