Auction Technology Group overseeing ‘extreme value destruction’, says largest

Auction Technology Group (ATG) is destroying shareholder value through its acquisition strategy, according to its largest investor.

Last week, ATG rebuffed FitzWalter Capital’s takeover attempts and told investors it remained confident in its ‘standalone prospects as a publicly listed company’.

However, FitzWalter, which has made 11 takeover attempts since September, said ATG had ‘presided over such extreme shareholder value destruction.’

It pointed to the 51 per cent decline in the group’s share price over the past year, which it attributed to its acquisition strategy.

After ATG announced its acquisition of ‘loss-making’ Chairish for $85million (£63million) last summer, shares plummeted by 21.7 per cent.

FitzWalter also accused ATG of allowing ‘cost driven margin declines, resulting in adjusted Ebitda declining for the first time in the history of the business since it was listed.’

It also said that ATG’s claims that it had ‘constructively engaged’ with the shareholder were incorrect.

‘In September 2025, FitzWalter was informed by the board that its preferred alternative (visa a vis the FitzWalter possible offer) was a disposal of its very material I&C division (45 per cent of 2025 Adjusted Ebitda), in order to fund the re-investment of sale proceeds into subsequent acquisitions.

‘The proposal to give up existing earnings and seeking to replace them with new acquisitions of the board’s choosing would have been in the face of the severe negative share price reaction to ATG’s acquisition of Chairish only one month earlier.’

FitzWalter accuses ATG of failing to engage with any of its possible offers in a ‘meaningful’ way and to its knowledge has not sought any alternative takeover offers.

Andrew Gray at FitzWalter said: ‘Given the majority of the Board has de minimis shareholdings in the company, and therefore has not experienced the pain that shareholders have suffered as a result of the value destruction the Board has presided over (for many years), it is perhaps unsurprising that the Board’s conviction in:

1. ATG’s prospects as a standalone company under its governance;

2. Its credibility in acquisitions and divestitures; and

3. Its own view of fundamental value;

… is so totally and completely detached and divorced from their track record, as evidenced by the share price performance.’

Shares in ATG rose 0.76 per cent following FitzWalter’s statement.