Payments FinTech Ebury Reportedly Planning UK IPO

Santander-owned payments FinTech Ebury is reportedly planning to go public in the U.K.

The London-based company is working with investment bankers from Goldman Sachs on the planned $2.5 billion initial public offering (IPO), the Financial Times (FT) reported Sunday (July 21), citing sources familiar with the matter.

The FT noted that Ebury’s choice to go public in the U.K. is a “rare vote of confidence” for the London Stock Exchange amid a listing drought. Many companies have expressed interest in going public, but rocky markets and high interest rates have scared off investors.

A representative for Ebury declined to comment when reached by PYMNTS.

The report also points to last year’s listing of rival FinTech CAB Payments, whose shares fell more than 70% after its IPO. At the same time, the FT added, some FinTechs are choosing to list in New York, like Klarna, which is reportedly readying an American IPO for next year.

Other companies are showing more caution about listing, like StubHub, which recently put its IPO on hold.

In May, the CEO of Swedish FinTech Trustly said an IPO was not yet on the company’s radar, in spite of demonstrating strong financials, because it has to sell its business model to investors before it can think about a public listing.

“We need another year or two to really demonstrate to the market that open banking is happening, it’s here,” Trustly CEO Johan Tjarnberg said at the time.

However, a report by Goldman Sachs from earlier this year argued that 2024 could mark a turnaround for the IPO market, with its IPO Issuance Barometer rising to its highest level in two years at that time.

“We expect the U.S. economy will continue to grow, the nominal 2-year UST yield will decline modestly, and valuations will remain elevated relative to history,” Goldman Sachs strategists wrote. “If soft data improve to match the hard economic data and equity investor pricing of economic growth, it could lead to a further increase in our IPO Issuance Barometer in coming months.”

Ebury’s services include cross-border payment, payroll transfers, currency risk management and business lending.

Founded in 2009 by Spanish engineers Juan Lobato and Salvador García, the company expanded its global footprint in 2022 with the purchase of Brazilian FinTech Bex.