Nuvei buys Israeli fintech Payoneer for $2.75 billion
The all-cash acquisition gives shareholders a premium to the current market price, but values Payoneer below its Wall Street debut valuation.
Israeli fintech company Payoneer is being sold to Canadian payments firm Nuvei in an all-cash deal worth $2.75 billion, five years after the company went public on Wall Street.
Nuvei, which has previously made several acquisitions in Israel, including Simplex and Teddy Sagi’s SafeCharge, will acquire Payoneer at a valuation that reflects a 21% premium over the company’s closing price on Nasdaq on Friday. Payoneer ended last week with a market capitalization of $2.26 billion.
Payoneer provides a global payments and money-transfer platform for businesses, freelancers, e-commerce merchants and service providers. The company enables cross-border transactions and serves customers around the world.
The sale comes after Reuters reported last week that Payoneer was in talks to be acquired by a Canadian company for about $2.7 billion. Payoneer’s shares had already climbed sharply following the report, narrowing the gap between its market value and the final transaction price.
Still, the sale price is below the valuation at which Payoneer entered the public markets. The company listed on Wall Street in June 2021 through a merger with a SPAC at a valuation of $3.3 billion.
That means Payoneer’s five-year journey as a public company did not generate a positive return for shareholders from its listing valuation. The $2.75 billion sale price reflects a discount of about 17% from the valuation used in its 2021 SPAC merger.
