HarbourVest clinches £807m SVG deal

Kenny Wastell
@kennywastell
18 October 2016

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HarbourVest has secured an agreement to wholly acquire the investment portfolio of SVG Capital for £807m, bringing to an end a fiercely competitive bidding war.

SVG is to be wound down following the transaction, with its shareholders due to receive a total of £1.12bn through a series of tender offers by Q3 2017.

The deal value represents a 0.6% premium on the £802m value of SVG's portfolio as of July 2016.

The development comes more than a month after HarbourVest originally made a separate offer to wholly acquire the issued shares in SVG in a deal that would have given the firm an equity value of £1.02bn.

Since then two consortiums – one comprising Pantheon Ventures and Pomona Capital and the other comprising Goldman Sachs and Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) – made rival asset-based takeover bids for SVG.

The rival bids led to HarbourVest extending the deadline for its share offer and putting forward a £783m asset-based bid of its own.

The final deal equates to an approximate aggregate value of 715 pence per share, SVG said in a statement. By comparison, HarbourVest's original deal valued SVG's shares at 650 pence apiece, while the offer by Goldman Sachs and CPPIB valued them at 680 pence each.