Payoneer Goes Public After SPAC Merger

Payments provider Payoneer (PAYO.O) went public on the Nasdaq stock exchange on Monday after it closed a merger with a blank-check firm backed by fintech entrepreneur Betsy Cohen.

Payoneer shares, trading under the “PAYO” ticker symbol, pared its early gains by midday trading session. The listing came four months after the New York-headquartered company announced its plan to merge with special-purpose acquisition company FTAC Olympus Acquisition Corp in a deal valued at about $3.3 billion, Reuters reports.

It is expected to have up to $563 million in cash, including $300 million in the form of private investment in public equity, or PIPE, from investors that include Wellington Management, Dragoneer Investment Group and Fidelity Management & Research Company.

Payoneer, founded in 2005, has a significant number of employees, including its management team, in Israel. It provides e-commerce services to individual online sellers as well as platforms, including Airbnb and Amazon.com Inc. It has published a bullish forecast on revenue for 2021 due to accelerated digital commerce during the pandemic.

The company expects $432 million in revenue in 2021, compared with $94.7 million in 2020. It eyes process transaction volume of $64 billion, a jump from $44.4 billion in 2020, and has plans to invest in more features and pursue acquisitions.

“Now with the public currency, we are able to make bolder investments, make more acquisitions and move faster to do bigger things for more customers and more places around the world,” Scott Galit, Payoneer chief executive, said in an interview.

FTAC Olympus, one of a series of SPACs launched by Cohen, founder of The Bancorp, raised $750 million in its IPO last year. Cohen, a veteran dealmaker in the SPAC space, is also taking Israeli online stock brokerage eToro to the public in a deal that values the company at $10.4 billion.