Monitise, the specialist in mobile banking software, has slumped 18% after it called off plans for a sale of the business and announced its founder was stepping down.
The company unveiled a strategic review in January and put up the for sale sign after its third revenue warning in a year. US technology group FIS, Mastercard and IBM had all been named as possible buyers.
Monitise said it had received a number of expressions of interest “but none of these indicative and non-binding proposals fully recognised the longer term value [of the company.” It added:
[They] were also structured in such a way that there was considerable uncertainty over their ultimate deliverability.
The board has concluded that the best way of maximising long-term value for all stakeholders is to continue transforming and streamlining the business as an independent company.
The company has suffered from the introduction of free payment systems from the likes of Google and Apple. It now plans to focus on Europe, the middle east and north America, shift its UK professional services employees to IBM, improve underperforming businesses and exit non-core operations.
At the same time founder and co-chief executive Alastair Lukies is stepping down immediately although he will remain a strategic adviser. Fellow chief executive Elizabeth Buse, a Visa executive who joined Monitise in June, will now take sole charge of the company.
It repeated its guidance for a loss of £40m to £50m for 2015, but Buse said:
Monitise remains on track to become EBITDA profitable in 2016.
One of its partners, Santander, said:
[We believe] that Monitise is uniquely well positioned as an independent player in the fast growing digital money space.
The news has sent the company’s shares down 3.25p to 14.75p.
