Intermex falls to $10.57 against Western Union's $16 cash offer as California's review drags on

Shares of International Money Express, the remittance company known as Intermex, fell 7.5% to $10.57 on Thursday, according to Nasdaq data. That is well below the $16 a share in cash that Western Union agreed to pay for it, and below the stock's 52-week low of $11.15. It was the latest drop in a slide that has taken the shares from $14.17 on Sept. 14, a 25% fall in eight sessions.

Citi analysts said Western Union wants to get the deal done, Seeking Alpha reported. The market is plainly less sure. Western Union's own shares fell 1.2% to $6.02, also below their 52-week low.

One state left

The roughly $500 million deal needs approval from money transmission regulators, because Intermex holds state licenses to move money. By June 24, the companies said, regulators in 51 U.S. states and territories and all international jurisdictions had approved or not objected, with one state pending, according to their release. That state was New York.

New York's approval was announced on Aug. 14. In the same release, the companies disclosed that California's Department of Financial Protection and Innovation had on Aug. 13 suspended an approval extension it granted on July 31. The regulator said it needed to review the deal again because six months had passed since it first approved it, and "to further examine the impact of the proposal on operations in this state." The companies said they would work to get the approval reinstated and close promptly after that.

Intermex has filed no update with the SEC since then, according to EDGAR. Its shareholders approved the deal in December 2025 and the federal antitrust waiting period expired in October 2025, according to its latest 10-Q.

What the spread says

At $10.57, a buyer of Intermex stock would collect $5.43 a share, or 51%, if the deal closes at $16. Deal spreads that wide are the market's way of saying it sees a real chance of failure, or a long delay, or both.

What would happen if it failed is the part that is easy to miss. The 10-Q describes a $27.3 million fee Western Union would pay Intermex, but only if the deal is ended over antitrust problems. Antitrust clearance came through last year. On the terms described in the filing, a deal that dies over a California license approval would not appear to trigger that payment. The full merger agreement may contain other provisions, but the filing mentions no other fee payable by Western Union.

For scale: $27.3 million is about 91 cents on each of the roughly 30 million Intermex shares implied by InsideArbitrage's market value data, a fraction of the $5.43 gap.

Who else it touches

Intermex, founded in 1994, serves customers sending money to more than 60 destinations, the companies said. California's stated reason for its second look, the deal's impact on operations in the state, is about those customers and the locations that serve them, not about the price Western Union is paying. The peso's recent slide, which we covered in our Banxico story, affects the same customers.

What to watch: any DFPI decision, a new joint update from the companies, and whether either side moves to extend or end the agreement.

Sources: Western Union and Intermex press releases; Intermex Form 10-Q; Seeking Alpha; InsideArbitrage; Nasdaq. Spread and per-share figures are Chronicle calculations. This is market information, not investment advice.