Below are the 19 reasons, in no particular order, they gave in various discussions with Euromoney during the past week. And here is the full story.
1) The equity story: Buy side didn’t buy it
2) Reporting currency: I’m confused. What exactly was the revenue growth then?
3) Syndicate structure: Too many glo-cos, not enough control
4) Timeframe: A summer mandate and a US election deadline? Never going to happen
5) Market conditions 1: Macro jitters — rates, inflation, growth
6) Market conditions 2: Other deals trading badly
7) Time of the year: Active investors are suffering, not much time left to find alpha
8) Valuation: Seller looked at Temenos, but market looked at Sage
9) Shifting sands: Deal smaller than I thought, less interested now
10) Been listed before: What’s changed to justify new valuation?
11) Seeing the word “punchy” in investor feedback
12) Brexit: obviously
13) US election: obviously
14) PE shareholder paying itself? Hmm
15) Client sector: Shaky outlook
16) Issuer sector: Banking software. Nuff said
17) Noise, fanfare: Too much pre-deal
18) Book quality: Not enough anchors, too much fluff?
19) Early look premarketing: only one round, not two
