What would it take for Credit Corp to lose patience with Humm Group?
CEO Thomas Beregi wanted to wrap things up by 1 May. With that timeline rapidly approaching, some market watchers are casting doubt on whether a deal will get done.
“I’d like to conclude this within six weeks”, Credit Corp chief executive Thomas Beregi told Capital Brief on 20 March, referring to his company’s increasingly complex and protracted takeover pursuit of buy now, pay later business Humm Group.
With most of that timeline now run down, some market watchers are doubtful the debt collector will have the patience to persist with its non-binding indicative proposal that values the company at $385 million.
“If you think about the backdrop in markets, what interest rates have done, where we are from an inflation perspective, what’s going to happen to the economy as a result of some of this inflationary pressure, I can’t imagine that that’s improving Humm’s business in the short term,” Harvest Lane managing director and lead portfolio manager Luke Cummings told Capital Brief.
Cummings, whose M&A arbitrage fund does not hold a position in Humm, therefore questions whether Credit Corp would be “as bullish on this business as they were back in November”.
