National Holdings Corporation (NHLD.OB) and vFinance, Inc. (VFIN.OB), both leading investment banking companies, announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement to merge.
As a result of this merger, National Holdings will issue shares of common stock in National for all outstanding vFinance common shares. For each share of vFinance stock owned, the vFinance shareholders will receive 0.14 shares in National, representing approximately 40% of National Holdings outstanding shares.
Leonard Sokolow, Chairman and CEO of vFinance, stated “Combined we will be one of the largest publicly traded financial service firms targeting the middle market with an independent contractor model having approximately 700 registered representatives, over 120 retail brokerage locations in the United States, Europe and Latin America, approximately 25 investment bankers and over 30 institutional sales people and traders making markets in excess of 3,500 stocks”.
“Based on the strengths of the two organizations, we will emerge as a formidable middle market firm, poised for continued growth,” said Chris Dewey, Vice Chairman of National.
“Our combined revenue will place National in a new tier amongst publicly traded brokerage firms. For the quarter ended June 30, 2007, the two firms generated over $30 million in revenues reflecting an annual run rate in excess of $120 million. Post merger, the combined firms will have more than 50,000 client accounts representing approximately $3 billion in direct assets and $1 billion in indirect assets,” said Mark Goldwasser, Chairman and CEO of National. “I am excited to be able to bring together two firms such as National and vFinance with complementary skill sets and management teams who have independently managed to grow and build critical infrastructure over the past five years.”
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