Payoneer, a digital Payments platform provider, had gone public on Monday through the Nasdaq Stock Exchange after closing a merger backed by Betsy Cohen, a fintech entrepreneur. The Israeli payments platform giant is now trading under the ticker symbol 'PAYO.O', which went up slightly on its early trading.
The manoeuvre comes after Payoneer, founded in 2005, disclosed its plans to merge with special-purpose acquisition company, FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp under a deal valued at around $3.3 billion at the time. According to Reuters, the payments firm is expected to gather up to $563 million in cash, which includes $300 million in the form of Private Investment in Public Entity (PIPE) from Wellington Management, Dragoneer Investment Group and Fidelity Management & Research Company.
“Now with the public currency, we are able to make bolder investments, make more acquisitions and move faster to do bigger things for more customers and more places around the world,” Scott Galit, Payoneer Chief Executive, commented during an interview. The latest forecasts made by Payoneer suggest that it expects $432 million in revenue versus $94.7 million pocketed in 2020 during the Coronavirus outbreak.
eToro’s Public Listing
On the other hand, FTAC Olympus Acquisition, a SPACs launched by Cohen and also the founder of The Bancorp, raised $750 million in its Initial Public Offering (IPO) last year. In addition, Finance Magnates reported in March, eToro had announced its merging with FinTech Acquisition Corp. V to make its public debut on Nasdaq. Again, Cohen participated in taking the brokerage to the public.
The combined companies will operate as eToro Group Ltd, and the estimated implied equity value will be around $10.4 billion at closing, which is a value that was expected from earlier reports. This put the implied enterprise value for eToro at $9.6 billion. At the time, the official announcement further detailed that $650 million will be raised from private placement in the public equity and another $250 million from FinTech V’s cash in trust.
