Auction Technology Group: Shareholder Dispute with Suitor Intensifies

FitzWalter also said it believed there was “inconsistent information between certain shareholders” about the events that occurred in private between the two sides last year. This was when it submitted most of its bids and when, during the course of talks, ATG disclosed to FitzWalter that it was exploring a sale of its industrial and commercial business, one of its two main divisions. The private equity firm on Thursday set out a timeline of its exchanges with ATG, prompting the auctions company to issue its own statement in which it sought “to provide additional clarity and set out facts clearly to shareholders” about the industrial and commercial unit. The timeline came on the same day that ATG held its annual meeting and issued a trading update, in which it said that group first-quarter revenues had increased by 7.2 per cent on a constant currency basis but “slightly declined” at the I&C division. ATG shares fell by 13p, or 3.8 per cent, to close at 326½p on Thursday, well short of FitzWalter’s most recent 400p-a-share bid. ATG operates online marketplaces used by auction houses to sell everything from arts and antiques to equipment used in industry, construction and farming. • Is this a good time to invest in Auction Technology Group? It listed on the London stock market at 600p in 2021 but its shares have since come under pressure, dropping last August when it sounded a profit warning and also rattled investors with an $85 million deal to acquire Chairish, a loss-making vintage furniture marketplace. FitzWalter, led by Ben Brazil, first approached ATG about a takeover in September and says it was the month after that Scott Forbes, the auction group’s chairman, told it the company was having “serious meetings with one third party regarding the potential sale of the I&C division”. FitzWalter, which opposed a disposal, claims Forbes had indicated that ATG would use the sale proceeds to make further acquisitions, something FitzWalter was also against after the unpopular purchase of Chairish. ATG said on Thursday that it had received approaches from two credible suitors for the division but that the “discussions were embryonic, and therefore the board did not debate the use of proceeds”, and that the talks went nowhere.