GoCompare said its board “unanimously and unequivocally rejected” the bid
The owners of uSwitch have revealed a failed £460m bid for GoCompare.
ZPG, which also owns online portal Zoopla, made an offer of 110p per share on November 8.
GoCompare said its board “unanimously and unequivocally rejected” the bid.
The bid is an 18.5 per cent premium to GoCompare’s closing share price on Monday, meaning the overall bid value was around £460m.
GoCompare was spun off from owner Esure a year ago and separately lised on the Stock Exchange.
Chairman Sir Peter Wood said: “The Board and I are extremely pleased with the transformation of the business that the management team has delivered since the demerger […] ZPG’s Proposal is highly opportunistic and fundamentally undervalues the Company and its prospects.”
Under take over rules, ZPG has until December 12 to make another bid or walk away. It was now ‘considering its position’.
GoCompare has been successfully expanding sales in non-insurance activities over the last few years, such as electricity, gas and broadband.
Although ZPG have not revealed the thinking behind the bid, they could uSwitch’s scale - it has a wide array of products in personal finance - to bring new products to the GoCompare aggregator.
They could also leverage GoCompare’s strength in general insurance to beef up products on the uSwitch general insurance suite.
Hosted by comedian and actor Tom Allen, 34 Gold, 23 Silver and 22 Bronze awards were handed out across an amazing 34 categories recognising brilliance and innovation right across the breadth of UK general insurance.
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