Dods raising £13.2m to part-fund acquisition of Meritgroup

The AIM-traded firm had previously announced the “transformational acquisition” of Meritgroup - a provider of data services and software code - for consideration of up to £22.4m.

On Friday, it announced the placing and subscription with new and existing investors to raise £12.2m to part-finance the acquisition, and an open offer to existing qualifying shareholders to raise up to an additional £1m.

The remainder of the consideration would financed through the issue of new shares, bank debt and existing cash resources.

Dods said the acquisition was in line with its growth strategy, as it would increase its depth in existing markets via “data enrichment”.

It also claimed that the acquisition was expected to be earnings-enhancing in the first full financial year following completion.

The acquisition and fundraising remained conditional on approval by shareholders, which the board was seeking at a general meeting on 16 July.

“The acquisition of Merit is the first step on our journey to becoming a significant augmented intelligence business where the combination of machine learning, artificial intelligence and human application meet to inform actionable business outcomes,” said chairman Dr David Hammond.

“There is a clear strategic fit and industrial logic in purchasing Merit which is a highly skilled, competent and educated business with over 15 years of domain expertise in data engineering.”

Dr Hammons said Meritgroup was “at the forefront” of innovation and technology, and had developed “significant” resident knowledge allowing it to help power “some of the world's leading” business intelligence solutions.

“With Dods' 186-year history of content creation and analysis in policy and political markets, the combination of the two companies will mean that customers can now seek answers from a trusted brand operating at scale across a range of global industries.”