WH Ireland Group PLC (AIM:WHI) rocketed almost 150% higher in initial trades after confirming it has received a bid proposal from Team PLC (AIM:TEAM).
Team suggested a possible all-share offer at an exchange ratio of 0.195 Team shares per WH Ireland share.
WH Ireland's board said it is evaluating the offer with its financial and legal advisers, having recently faced shareholder opposition to the sale of its wealth management arm to Oberon Investments Group PLC (AQSE:OBE).
Team, which also confirmed that it is in talks, has been set a put-up-or-shut-up deadline of 5pm on 10 December.
Sky News published a story overnight that said the discussions were about a deal that could value WH Ireland at more than 4p-per-share - roughly eight times the value of the Oberon transaction.
Last month, WH Ireland shareholders voted against the Oberon deal, with some major shareholders having gone public with their opposition to what they saw as a cut-price sale.
Oberon was due to pay £1 million in cash, while taking on certain contractual liabilities, leaving WHI to delist the company's shares from trading on AIM and wind down the company.