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Charles Schwab is expected to announce a deal to acquire Forge Global, the private share marketplace, with an offer valued at as much as $600mn as it seeks to broaden investor access to closely held Silicon Valley unicorns. 

Schwab is set to pay as much as $45 per share for Forge Global, according to two people familiar with the terms, roughly triple the price of the San Francisco-based company’s shares before the Financial Times reported that it had put itself up for sale. The price would represent a near 75 per cent premium to Forge Global’s closing price on Wednesday.

The transaction could be announced as soon as this week, though there is no assurance the parties will agree and it could fall through at the last minute. A Schwab spokesperson declined to comment. Forge Global did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The prospective deal comes just a week after Morgan Stanley acquired EquityZen, a direct competitor of Forge Global. Groups including OpenAI and SpaceX have secured valuations in private markets reaching hundreds of billions of dollars.

Earlier this year, Texas-based Schwab rolled out an alternative investment platform that allowed clients with more than $5mn in investible assets to get access to private equity and hedge fund investments. Schwab, founded in the 1970s, pioneered the discount stock brokerage business, though the company has since shifted to more formal advice offerings.

Founded in 2014, Forge Global went public in 2021 through a blank-cheque company merger sponsored by the fintech fund Motive Partners. Its shares have dropped by 90 per cent as the company has struggled to increase revenue amid heavy competition.

Charles Schwab has a market capitalisation of $170bn and oversees almost $12tn in client assets. It acquired rival digital broker TD Ameritrade for $26bn in 2020.

The Brownfield M&M contract is a significant¹ five-year extension to the original engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) enabling agreement awarded in 2015. Aker Solutions has delivered platform-wide upgrades and modifications to the Hebron platform since 2015 and has provided multi-disciplinary services to the East Coast Atlantic region for more than 30 years. 

“We will leverage our multi-discipline Project Execution Model to deliver fit-for-purpose solutions with speed and precision, ensuring successful outcomes while reducing costs,” said Paal Eikeseth, Executive Vice President and head of Aker Solutions’ Life Cycle Business.

The work will be led from Aker Solutions’ location in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, where the company has increased its staff from 100 to 350 employees in recent years.

“We are pleased to continue our collaboration with ExxonMobil Properties, as operator of the Hebron platform, offshore Newfoundland and Labrador. Canada is a key market for us, where we take a long-term view and continue to deliver strong customer value through our capabilities,” said Eikeseth. 

The contract will be booked as an order intake in the fourth quarter of 2025 in the Life Cycle segment.

¹Aker Solutions defines a significant contract as being between NOK 1.5 billion and NOK 2.5 billion.