Digital Magics, venture incubator of digital startups listed on the AIM Italia market of the Italian Stock Exchange, announced yesterday a very rich divestment, having signed the sale of its 22.4% stake in the capital of Prestiamoci, the only Italian startup approved as a finance company by the Bank of Italy for the management of a private lending platform on the Internet.
Prestiamoci will be acquired for a price of 5.3 million euros by Norwegian TrustBuddy International AB, the only company of peer-to-peer lending in the world to be listed on the stock market (download here the press release).
Founded in 2009, TrustBuddy is a global leader within its segment and is active in the market of 9 countries in Europe. With more than 300,000 users and 7 locations in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark, Spain, Estonia and Poland,
TrustBuddy will acquire 100% of the shares of Agata spa (the company that owns and manages the Prestiamoci brand) for an total price of 5.3 million euros which will be paid for 1.5 millions in cash and for 3,8 millions in shares of TrustBuddy, according to an evaluation of the market that will be established shortly before the closing.
In addition, the shareholders of Prestiamoci will receive 10 million of purchase options of the shares of TrustBuddy, with an exchange ratio of 1 option to 1 share by 2018 and a strike price equal to 160% of the price near the closing. The operation is subject to due diligence and to authority approval and the closing will be two weeks from delivery of that approval.
Digital Magics and the other investors of Prestiamoci, many of whom belong to the Digital Magics Angel Network, will become important shareholders of TrustBuddy through this transaction
Digital Magics currently owns about 22.4% of Agata spa taking into account also the dilution caused by the stock option reserved for top management, with a purchase value of about 300k euros. At the end of the transaction, the capital gain of the transfer will be about 300%, just a little more than a year after the first investment.
Last September Prestiamoci obtained a new 450k euros financing round (see here a previous post by BeBeez) after a 500k euros capital increase in October 2013 (download here the press release).
