Finovate Blog

With a successful FinDEVr 2015 behind us, and an exciting FinovateEurope 2016 around the corner, it is hard for us to hide our excitement over the IPO of FinDEVr 2015 newcomer, Worldpay. The British payment processor went public last week on the London Stock Exchange, opening at 240 pence ($3.68) per share on Tuesday and ending the session up more than 5% at 253 pence. Later in the week, shares were trading above 260 pence.

Worldpay, which is owned by private equity firms Advent International and Bain Capital, has earned a valuation of more than $7 billion (£4.8 billion). The company offered 900 million shares, and is expected to raise more than £2 billion through the IPO, more than £947 million of which will return to WorldPay.

As the Financial Times reported, the Worldpay IPO was the biggest initial public offering in the U.K. in two years, and the largest ever of a private equity owned company in the U.K.

Worldpay SVP and Head of Strategy Chester Ritchie demonstrated Worldpay’s Securenet API at FinDEVr 2015 in San Francisco.

Worldpay CEO Philip Jansen referred to the public offering as a milestone, but contextualized it with investments the company itself has made to build its business. “We have already invested over £1 billion in our technology, people, and capabilities,” Jansen told the FT. “(We’ve) become an advanced and sophisticated technology-led organization with great potential.”

Worldpay was created out of the Royal Bank of Scotland as a standalone entity in 2010. With revenues of more than £860 million ($974 million USD) in 2014, the company processes more than 30 million mobile, online, and card transactions daily. The company’s IPO contrasts with that of First Data, a U.S. payment processor that also went public this week in the largest pubic offering of the year (First Data sought to raise $3.7 billion). Shares of First Data failed to gain traction with investors, with the stock finishing the week slightly below its IPO price of $16.

Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch, and Morgan Stanley led the offering with Lazard serving as financial adviser for Worldpay.

For its FinDEVr debut earlier this month, Worldpay introduced its Securenet API. The technology enables developers to add secure payments to websites, apps, and mobile devices. Worldpay’s experience with APIs includes winning Best New Product of the Year in the SMB category of the Best in Biz Awards 2015 International for its payments-integration solutions.

Live video of Worldpay’s FinDEVr presentation will be available soon.