Capital Appreciation, the listed special purpose acquisition company founded by former Netcare chairman Michael Sacks, has made its first acquisition since listing on the JSE nearly two years ago.
The Competition Commission approved the intermediate merger with fintech companies African Resonance Business Solutions and Rinwell Investments, which owns payment processor Dashpay.
Sacks could not be reached for comment on Monday.
In a circular to shareholders, Capital Appreciation said both fintech companies were "uniquely positioned to capitalise on their technologically innovative products and competencies within the South African payment sector".
African Resonance provides payment infrastructure and related services to financial institutions, emerging payment service providers, the hospitality industry and retailers. Dashpay is a third-party payment processor for merchants.
It is registered with the Payment Association of SA.
Customers were increasingly adopting card-based and digital currency, which presented opportunities for Capital Appreciation.
"African Resonance and Dashpay, on behalf of and in association with their institutional clients, are well-positioned to respond to changing market and institutional clients’ end-market customer needs," Capital Appreciation said.
It paid R525m in a mix of cash and shares to acquire African Resonance from shareholders including Moss Ngoasheng’s Safika Holdings.
African Resonance had a net asset value of R58.9m as at August 31 2016, according to the shareholder circular.
Shareholders in Rinwell, with a net asset value of R7.8m, received R225m.
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