Nuvei closes TSX’S largest tech IPO with $805M

Philip Fayer took little time to celebrate after his Montreal payments company, Nuvei Corp., closed the Toronto Stock Exchange’s largest initial public offering in the technology sector.

“People will find this crazy, but I was online the next morning at 6 a.m. like I am every day,” he said.

Despite his humble demeanour, Nuvei’s founder and chief executive had plenty to be proud of.

The company he founded 17 years ago when looking for payment options for another business he was involved in made $730 million (U.S.) and shareholder Novacap Management Inc. made $75 million from offering up more than 30 million subordinate voting shares at $26 per share last week.

Nuvei first hoped to raise $600 million, but ended up being oversubscribed by 20 per cent and then its 14 underwriters bought more than four million shares through stock options they had.

Nuvei’s goal continued to creep up as interest in the company grew, but Fayer said the company “didn’t set out to be record-breaking.”

He just wanted to use the IPO to reward his 800 employees with $100,000 (Canadian) in stock options for their hard work and build capital for future mergers and acquisitions, which have been a cornerstone of Nuvei’s strategy.

Nuvei completed its $889million purchase of U.k.-based payments company last August and is in the process of buying Smart2pay, a Dutch payments business.

Novacap senior partner David Lewin said he’s been pleased with Nuvei’s IPO and wants its current strategy to stick around.

Lewin is keeping a careful eye on the company because of the pandemic, which has accelerated the shift toward e-commerce and created a buzz around tech stocks.

The pandemic has seen Shopify

Inc., based in Ottawa, overtake the country’s most valuable company, Royal Bank of Canada, on the TSX.

Montreal cloud technology business Lightspeed POS Inc. has also recently managed to raise $305 million (U.S.) after trying its luck on the New York Stock Exchange.

As of Aug. 31, there were 211 technology companies listed on both TSX and TSX Venture Exchange with a combined market capitalization of $289 billion (Canadian).

Lewin always worries about companies he is involved in when they IPO, but interest in tech businesses and COVID-19 added new elements to the mix for Nuvei, he said.