Shares in a specialist digital payments platform business have surged after announcing a deal to sell a subsidiary to an American financial services, whose CEO is Twitter's Jack Dorsey, which values it at more than £20bn.
ThinkSmart, which is headquartered in Australia but its European arm is listed on AIM and based in Manchester, has agreed an all share deal to sell Afterpay to San Francisco-based Square, Inc.
The deal for Melbourne-based Afterpay values the business at AU$39bn and has been recommended by its board.
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The move gives Afterpay the right to exercise its call option to purchase the remaining shares in ThinkSmart's Clearpay Finance from at any time following the change of control.
ThinkSmart's 10% holding in Clearpay UK was last valued at £106.6m on December 31, 2020.
The acquisition of Afterpay by is expected to complete during the first quarter of 2022.
ThinkSmart's UK shares were up by more than 35% by 10.15am on Monday, August 2.
Ned Montarello, executive chairman of ThinkSmart, said: "The combination of Afterpay and Square is exciting with complementary service offerings and customer bases.
"For ThinkSmart's shareholders, we believe this translates to a very positive and material impact on Clearpay UK, which we retain a 10% shareholding in.
"That growth of Clearpay UK, which it is clear today is continuing unabated, has been phenomenal adding 2.1m customers in the first 2 years of trading.
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"We are now more excited than ever about its prospects and how this deal should provide further upside for ThinkSmart's shareholders."
