Ascend Fundraising Solutions announced that on February 1, 2021 it submitted a binding offer to acquire Bump 50:50, a wholly owned subsidiary of Sportech.

The Binding Offer requires no further diligence, financing or regulatory conditions prior to entering into a definitive agreement.

We are unaware of the termination language in the CBN Agreement, but Sportech’s board approved a conditional agreement knowing of our serious interest to acquire Bump at a higher price with no performance earn-out risk. Ascend sought to engage with the Board of Sportech on multiple occasions since January 4^th, including our letter seeking to acquire Bump on January 25th, 2021 for C$10.7 million.

After submitting today’s Binding Offer, not only did Sportech’s CEO Richard McGuire or Board fail to engage, but this afternoon we received an email from Sportech’s legal counsel instructing us not to issue any kind of release associated with Sportech or Bump. In fact, Sportech’s legal counsel noted the CBN Agreement is “binding” when the RNS release stated it was “conditional.”

Sportech has taken the curious step of trying to suppress shareholders from knowing about, what by every financial metric, is an undeniably superior proposal. It is strikingly odd governance that Sportech would issue a “cease and desist” warning to its own financial detriment. If Sportech shareholders wish to accept a lower price, we believe they should know their Board flatly rejected an offer that was at a 25% premium without performance requirements. Now they do.

At no point was Ascend contacted prior to commencement of serious discussions with CBN. Ascend had previously made offers for Bump dating back to November 2017.