Asia-Pacific Strategic Investments’ acquisition of MoneySmart falls through
Yong Jun Yuan
ASIA-PACIFIC Strategic Investments (APS) will no longer acquire Catapult Ventures, which owns personal financial marketplace MoneySmart.
In a bourse filing on Friday (Jun 30), APS said that both parties mutually agreed not to extend the long stop date for the sale and purchase agreement, citing “adverse current market conditions”. The deal then lapsed on Jun 30.
The acquisition would have resulted in the reverse takeover of APS and led to the listing of Catapult Ventures on the Singapore Exchange (SGX), subject to SGX approval.
The acquisition price was raised to S$221.5 million in November 2022, which raised the valuation of MoneySmart by roughly 75 per cent from its last funding round in 2019, according to data platform VentureCap Insights.
In February, APS announced that both parties had agreed to extend the long stop date to Jun 30, from Feb 28.
The company said that it will continue to explore opportunities with other parties.
APS traded flat at S$0.002 before the announcement was made.
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