Tax, Financial Services Co. Cuts $60M From Deal Offer Price

By McCord Pagan
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Law360 (April 9, 2020, 2:45 PM EDT) -- Tax and financial services group Blucora announced Thursday it was cutting by $60 million its base offer price for HK Financial Services due to the market downturn, roughly three months after the two agreed on a $160 million acquisition.

Irving, Texas-based Blucora Inc. said it and Honkamp Krueger Financial Services Inc. agreed on the adjusted $100 million price for the deal, which Blucora said will still benefit its retirement planning services and grow the use of its tax and investing software. The two sides first announced the deal Jan. 7.

"We continue to believe that the acquisition of HKFS will bring significant short- and long-term strategic value to our advisors, end-customers and stockholders and given the current market environment we felt it was appropriate to undertake a detailed review of the transaction terms and timing," Chris Walters, president and CEO of Blucora, said in Thursday's statement.

Nasdaq-traded Blucora has lost just over half its stock value since Jan. 2, falling from a high of $26 per share to $12.85 each on April 8.

In documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, Blucora said the new terms also require it to pay out two sets of bonuses worth at most $30 million each on the first and second anniversaries of the closing of the deal, so long as Blucora sees "substantial growth" in the value of its assets under management and meets certain performance goals.

The deal was originally supposed to close by the end of the first quarter of this year, but now can close anytime through Oct. 1 and even beyond that if the parties agree, according to the release.

The January announcement said HKFS was being valued at 9.3 times its earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, but on Thursday Blucora said the company is now being assessed at 6.3 times the same measurement.

Blucora said it operates from two main segments — Avantax Wealth Management, which has $71 billion in client assets, and TaxAct, which has about 3 million consumer and professional users.

A representative for Blucora did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday, and a spokesperson for HKFS declined to comment and referred back to Blucora's statement. 

Counsel information for the deal was not available.

--Editing by Janice Carter Brown.

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