A Dutch information technology company’s takeover of Amherst-based Computer Task Group is complete.
After extending its tender offer for CTG shareholders three times, Cegeka said today that it was able to complete the acquisition after nearly 74% of CTG shares were tendered by the Tuesday deadline. The tender offer required two-thirds of CTG’s shares to be tendered for the deal to go through – a threshold that had not been met as recently as three weeks ago, when just 57% of CTG’s shares had been tendered.
“This merger enables both the customers and employees of CTG and Cegeka to grow forward together,” said André Knaepen, Cegeka’s chairman, in a statement.
“We will take the time necessary to finish developing and executing a thoughtful and well-communicated integration plan with the well-being of our customers and employees of top consideration,” he said. “In 2024, we’ll focus on establishing the fundamentals necessary to drive our evolution into a powerful and integrated company in 2025.”
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CTG’s CEO, Filip Gydé will not have a role at the combined companies, Cegeka said.
Under the terms of the $180 million acquisition, CTG shareholders will receive $10.50 per share in cash.
Cegeka’s offer was a 31% premium over its share price before the deal was announced in August, and it is more than the stock has traded at in two years, when the shares briefly topped $11 in April 2021.
That brief spike in 2021 was the only instance where the shares managed to break out of their narrow trading range over the past nine years, with the stock fluctuating between $4 and $10 a share during most of that time.
CTG also has been changing since Gydé took over as CEO in 2019. The company has downsized its Buffalo operations, selling off its two Delaware Avenue offices in favor of a headquarters in an Amherst office park.
It also has bolstered its European business and put more emphasis on its more profitable IT solutions business, over the more volatile and lower-margin staffing business that once generated most of its sales.
With the focus on Europe intensifying, a little more than half of CTG’s sales now come from the continent.
