Wisdom Tree reached a definitive agreement to acquire ETF Securities' European exchange-traded commodity, currency and short-and-leveraged business that in aggregate has roughly $17.6 billion in assets under management.
According to WisdomTree, the deal announced earlier this week would provide the New York City-based exchange-traded fund company with significant scale in Europe and would make it the world’s ninth-biggest exchange-traded product provider, with assets of about $66 billion globally on a pro-forma basis, as of November 9.
Under the terms of the agreement, WisdomTree will exchange $253 million of cash and stock consideration of 30 million WisdomTree shares. Based on Friday's market close price, the purchase price is valued at $611 million. Excluding one-time transaction and integration costs, WisdomTree says the acquisition will be immediately accretive to its earnings per share.
ETF Securities, with offices in England, Australia and New York City, lists eight commodities-based ETFs in the U.S. covering base metals, precious metals and energy.
In another move involving the company’s European exchange-traded business, ETF Securities on Wednesday announced it sold its Canvas ETF platform to U.K. asset manager Legal and General Investment Management. Canvas, a white-label services platform that allows asset management companies to launch their own ETFs, has $2.7 billion in assets across 17 products and partnerships.