Canada's Canaccord Financial has agreed to take over Collins Stewart Hawkpoint in a deal valuing the UK broker and financial services group at just over 253 million pounds ($390 million), Canaccord said on Thursday.Shareholders will be offered 57.6 pence in cash and 0.072607 Canaccord shares for each Collins Stewart share. That values each Collins Stewart share at 96 pence, a more than 90 percent premium on Wednesday's closing price.Collins Stewart shares, currently trading at their lowest levels in more than three years, were up almost 74 percent at 87.7 pence after the announcement.Canaccord has been circling British brokers for some time, and was one of the parties looking at investment bank and broker Evolution earlier this year. South Africa's Investec ended up snapping up the firm.
Canaccord Financial Inc., through its principal subsidiaries, is an independent, full-service financial services firm, with operations in two principal segments of the securities industry: wealth management and global capital markets. Shares of CF fell by 12.35% or $-1.05/share to $7.45. In the past year, the shares have traded as low as $8.21 and as high as $16.41. On average, 159086 shares of CF.TO exchange hands on a given day and today's volume is recorded at 436665.
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