Online Payoneer Airbnb Amazon: Payoneer, an online payments service that counts Airbnb and Amazon among its clients, is selling shares to the public for $10 apiece through a SPAC.
The company announced Monday that it had chosen to sell shares at $10 apiece via a SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company. It will raise up to $260 million with the IPO and offer another 12.5% stake in the newly-formed entity to investors.
Payoneer, whose CEO is Scott Kennedy, got its start in 2011 as a provider of payment processing services for international remittance companies and online e-commerce sellers. The company says it has millions of users and serves more than 200,000 businesses.
Payoneer competes with other money transfer companies such as Western Union and blockchain group Ripple Labs’ Rialto.
The company also has worked with Airbnb and Amazon on various payments strategies to strengthen customer relationships with the two e-commerce giants.
Payoneer is a so-called SPAC, or special purpose acquisition company, that has been used by public companies to quickly create an IPO vehicle without actually having to go through the process of selling shares.
The process involves selling investors an equity stake in a new company, which then goes on a shopping spree in order to find an operating business and buy it at a premium.
Investors are then supposed to make their profits upon the sale of the acquired assets by those companies.
SPACs are typically used to make deals and then take the acquired company public within a 12-month period of time. They have been criticized by some investors since they usually pay a small premium for the acquired assets. And sometimes peak corporate values fall short of the IPO value.
Payoneer said it plans to use proceeds from its offering for general corporate purposes, which could include acquisitions and “new product offerings.
Payoneer will list its shares on the Nasdaq under the symbol PAYO. It plans to use proceeds from its offering to expand its sales and marketing efforts, expand engineering centers, outreach and speak with new customers, and add people to future management positions.
The company also said it may deploy some of its IPO proceeds for “eligible strategic acquisitions.
Payoneer’s main pipeline is in the global remittance space and the company aims to go public in the first half of next year.
The company already has raised $225 million from investors, including a group of venture capital firms including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Intel Capital, GSR Ventures and HVF Capital.
Payoneer’s investors include SoftBank Group Corp., Santander Holdings Inc., Western Union Co., Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Ltd., BankUnited Bancorp Inc. and SoFi Inc.
Payoneer’s base business is the processing of payments for merchants to and from international customers. It has also provided payments processing services to more than 62,000 businesses, according to the company.
The company also offers services to corporations for multi-currency account management, international payments processing and global transaction banking, such as wire transfers and deposits.
