The company’s shares gained 25% to A22.5c yesterday after announcing a deal to acquire financial services industry cloud platform provider Decimal Group.

Aviva will issue 112.5 million shares to Decimal shareholders and complete a share consolidation and return of 6c per share, or $11.4 million in total, to shareholders.

The current Aviva board, which comprises chairman Ian Middlemas, chief financial officer Stef Weber, and directors Rob Kirtlan, Mark Pearce and Lindsay Reed, will resign, in favour of Decimal directors Michael Sertorio and Jan Kolbusz.

Aviva was cashed up but without mining projects after selling its Kenyan gold projects for $20 million in 2012 and its Mmamantswe coal project in Botswana for $3.5 million last year.

As a result, Aviva had $23.2 million at the end of September and was actively looking for opportunities.

The deal requires shareholder approval due to the change of nature and scale of the company’s activities.