Report: Flywire Exploring Sale After Seeing Interest From Potential Buyers

Flywire is reportedly exploring a sale after seeing interest in a takeover.

The payments processor, which has a market value of $2.3 billion, is working with investment bankers to evaluate interest from private equity firms and other potential buyers, Reuters reported Friday (Aug. 2), citing unnamed sources.

The talks are in the early stages and may not result in a deal, according to the report.

Flywire did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

Potential buyers’ interest in an acquisition of Flywire come at a time when the company’s shares have been down about 25% from where they were at the beginning of the year and down by nearly 50% since the company’s initial public offering (IPO) in 2021, the report said.

Like other payment processors, Flywire has struggled to maintain growth since the pandemic and has faced increasing competition and high inflation, per the report.

When filing in May 2021 to go public, Flywire said that while many industries lacked the digital payments infrastructure that is necessary to meet customer demand, the trend toward digitizing payments is “inevitable.”

In a recent move, Flywire said in May that it expanded availability of its third-party invoicing solution, which streamlines the payment experience for third-party sponsors paying a student’s tuition and fees. The company said that institutions can reduce their administrative burden, ease reconciliation and increase their revenue by creating, issuing and tracking invoices to engage sponsors and encourage timely payments.

In February, the firm partnered with State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest public sector bank, to enable digital payments of education-related fees in payers’ local currencies. Flywire integrates directly into SBI’s banking platform, fostering a digital checkout experience, and users can track the payment through to when the funds are delivered to their university.

It was reported in March that major merger and acquisition (M&A) deals — agreements worth at least $10 billion — more than doubled during the fourth quarter, with companies “capitalizing on the market conditions to accelerate growth.”

At that time, the overall value of global M&A had risen 30%, marking a jump in activity that followed last year’s decade-long low.