Outsourcer hopes to raise its stake to 29.9%

Insurance outsourcer Quindell has bought a further 2.8% stake in Nationwide Accident Repair Services (NARS), taking its holding to 25.3%.

The company hopes to eventually take its stake in NARS to 29.9%.

The latest acquisition, comprising 1.2 million shares, follows Quindell’s purchase of a 22.5% stake in the accident repair firm on Wednesday.

As with the previous purchase, the new shares were acquired through a share swap. Quindell exchanged 6.4 million of its own shares for the 1.2 million shares in NARS.

This equates to a ratio of 5.17 Quindell shares for each NARS share.

Quindell founder and executive chairman Rob Terry said: “We are pleased to be announcing this increase to our shareholding, taking it to 25.3% which is clearly a key level of influence to have reached in relation to any future shareholder decisions regarding the business, and we will continue to look at building our holding to 29.9%.

“As previously stated, having a direct ownership stake in a repair services network will enable us to take advantage of the volume we manage for our clients.

“Following an initial meeting with the chief executive and finance director of NARS yesterday, we remain extremely confident of the value creation opportunity for both NARS’ and Quindell’s shareholders by the two companies working in collaboration in the market even though no specific agreements have been reached at this stage.”