Livehire sees share rocket 91% on takeover bid by Humanforce

Recruitment platform Livehire Ltd (ASX:LVH) has seen its share price rise more than 91% on news that its board has unanimously supported a takeover by Humanforce Holdings Pty Ltd, following a period of the former’s assessment of capital structure and ownership options.

Humanforce – which also offers workforce-related services through a SaaS platform – is an Accel-KKR portfolio company, and has entered into an agreement with Livehire for an all cash, on-market takeover bid, acquiring all of the latter’s ordinary shares priced at 4.5 cents each before the offer closes on September 30.

Humanforce in fact already has a 19.99% stake in Livehire, holding 73,882,619 of its shares.

In its report to the market, Livehire said its board had embarked on search for a strategic new investor several months ago, with this leading to the Bid Implementation Agreement (BIA) with Humanforce.

Chair Andrew Rutherford said that reaching an agreement with Humanforce was a pleasing end to this journey.

“Humanforce’s Offer provides certainty of value for LiveHire Shareholders and enables them to realise value for their investment at a significant premium to LiveHire’s recent trading price,” he said.

The Offer Price of $0.045 (4.5 cents) was reported to be an 87.5% premium to the undisturbed closing share price of $0.024 on the last day of trading prior to this announcement (August 13), as well as a 75.8% premium to undisturbed 30-day volume weighted average price (VWAP) of $0.0261.

At 12:13 AEST, Livehire’s share price was 2.2 cents, a rise of 91.67% since the market opened.