Listing announcements this past week — initial public offerings (IPOs) and special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs) among them — were dominated by banking and high-tech firms focused on cloud technologies.
The PYMNTS SPAC/IPO tracker shows a bit of an uptick in bank-related announcements, to 43 year to date, while payments-related companies stood at 24.
And drilling down into the financial services vertical, we see that, as has been the case in recent weeks, the listings activity was decidedly international in scope.
In one example, XPAC Acquisition, which is a blank check company based in Brazil, went public last week, offering 20 million units at $10 per unit. As noted in its SEC filing, the SPAC, which had been created by XP, a financial services firm based in Brazil, will target sectors including technology, education, financial services and healthcare.
Separately, Southern States Bancshares, which operates as a bank based in Alabama with 15 branches in Georgia and Alabama, disclosed that it would seek to raise $40 million in an IPO. Total assets under management, the company said in its own filing with the SEC, grew to $1.4 billion in the most recent period — the end of the first quarter of 2021, compared to $1.3 billion at the end of last year, and up from about $1.1 billion in 2019.
Technology services firm Pico said it will go public following a $1.75 billion merger with FTAC Athena Acquisition Group. In announcing the merger earlier this week, the firms said the deal could provide $450 million in proceeds. Pico said in its investor documents that tech offerings, which serve the financial services industry may generate revenue growth of more than 26 percent (CAGR) through 2023, while recurring revenue represents more than two thirds of the tally.
See also: IPOFinTech Pico Going Public By Merging With SPAC
Recent Trading Action
Late last week, anti-fraud platform Riskified began trading, raising a bit more than $360 million in its own debut. AS PYMNTS has found, fraud costs U.S. merchants $2.94 for every dollar of fraud.
See also: Riskified Begins Trading As IPO Values Anti-Fraud Firm At $3.3B
Delving into the company’s SEC filing, we see that revenue CAGR through the 2018-2020 period was more than 50 percent, while revenue for the latest year was $170 million. Operating losses narrowed to $6.8 million from $13.8 million the year before.
MeridianLink went public last week, debuting on its initial July 28 trading date and closing at $24.60; the most recent closing price on Thursday (Aug. 5) stood at $24.
As noted in an interview with Karen Webster, the company said that its cloud-based software and online platforms was built to help middle-market community banks and credit unions (CUs) with assets between $100 million and $10 billion “punch above their weight” in consumer lending. CEO Nicolaas Vlok said MeridanLink’s end-to-end loan origination platform gives banks a flexible, streamlined way to review and approve a variety of consumer lending applications. With automated loan decisioning at the center of that model, mid-market FIs will be able to “lower the cost of capital for millions of people out there, and give them access to better rates.”
Read more: Data And The Cloud Helps Mid-Market Banks ‘Punch Above Their Weight’ In Consumer Lending
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