Nationwide Financial Gets Buyout Offer

Updated from 10:26 a.m. EDT



Nationwide Financial Services (NFS) received a buyout offer from its parent company to acquire it in a deal worth more than $2 billion.

The company said that Nationwide Mutual, which includes Nationwide Mutual Insurance, Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance and Nationwide Corp., is offering $47.20 for each of its Class A shares.

Shares of Nationwide Financial were up 24.5% to $47.21. The stock closed Friday at $37.93, near the 52-week low of $37.42. The high for the past year is $65.52.

As of Dec. 31, Nationwide Financial had 46.7 million Class A common shares outstanding, representing a 33.7% equity stake in the company and 4.8% of the combined voting power of the shareholders of Nationwide Financial.

Nationwide Mutual owns all of Nationwide Financial's Class B common stock, which represents the remaining 66.3% equity ownership and 95.2% of the voting power.

Nationwide Financial's board has appointed a special committee, made up of independent, nonaffiliated directors, to consider the proposal. The committee will respond to the offer "in due course after it has had an opportunity to fully review and evaluate its terms."

Know What You Own: Nationwide Financial operates in the insurance industry, and some of the other stocks in its field include Prudential Financial (PRU), American International Group (AIG), AXA ADS (AXA) and MetLife (MET). These stocks were recently trading at $68.56, $42.81, $30.96 and $56.71, respectively.

This article was written by a staff member of TheStreet.com.