Restaurant POS System Provider Lightspeed Considering Going Private

Lightspeed, which provides point-of-sale (POS) systems to restaurants, is reportedly considering going private.

The firm went public five years ago but Dax Dasilva, interim CEO and founder of Lightspeed, wonders if going private would be a better option, Bloomberg reported Monday (March 25), citing an interview published on the Montreal-based, French-language news site La Presse.

After going public at 16 Canadian dollars (about $12) per share, Lightspeed’s stock soared to 155 Canadian dollars (about $114) per share in 2021 but dropped later that year, according to the report. It is currently at about 13 Canadian dollars (about $9.60) per share, with the company valued at 2.9 billion Canadian dollars (about $2.1 billion).

While Dasilva said he believes the stock market is a good place for Lightspeed, he said he wonders if the company could do more as a private company, adding that the firm is always open to discussions on that topic, per the report.

His comments followed payments firm Nuvei’s March 17 announcement that it is considering acquisition bids, with Dasilva saying that some people have told him that Lightspeed, too, might do more as a private company, according to the report.

Nuvei issued its statement March 17 in response to a Wall Street Journal report that it was close to being acquired by private equity company Advent International.

The FinTech’s statement said that its board had formed a committee to evaluate “expressions of interest” in the company and that “it is engaged in discussions with certain third parties in connection with a potential transaction involving continued significant ownership by certain of the holders of multiple voting shares, including Phil Fayer, Nuvei’s founder, chair and chief executive officer.”

Lightspeed sees a “massive opportunity” in the space it serves, as many of its target customers are still using dated legacy systems, then-CEO JP Chauvet said in February during the company’s quarterly earnings call.

“We believe the majority of these customers will adopt cloud-based offerings in the next few years,” Chauvet said. “We are well positioned to benefit from this shift and with payments now tightly integrated into the software platform and mandatory for all eligible customers, we believe our unit economics will only improve.”