Nuvei, a Montreal-based payment technology firm and provider of global payment solutions, announced this week that it has completed its acquisition of SafeCharge International Group in a deal valued at $889 million.
The financial newsite Globes reports that SafeCharge was founded in 2007 by CEO David Avgi and businessman Teddy Sagi, and held its IPO on AIM in April 2014. The share price at which the company was sold reflects a premium of about 200% including dividends, on the price at which its IPO was held. Since the IPO, SafeCharge has distributed dividends to investors of more than $100 million, so that the value which has been created is about $1 billion – a figure that makes it one of the most successful fintech companies that has been grown in Israel.
Significant Irish operation
In late 2014, it was announced that SafeCharge had acquired the Irish company 3V for around €14 million. Established in 2004, 3V specialised in tools for the issuing, processing and management of pre-paid card programmes. The company had developed proprietary systems that support both physical card programmes and mobile based virtual cards, gift cards and virtual vouchers. At the time of the acquisition, the Blackrock-based firm had around 56 employees.
Nuvei Chairman and CEO Philip Fayer said, “This marks the dawn of a new, exciting journey for Nuvei. Thanks to SafeCharge’s technology platform, we’ve enhanced our ability to deliver powerful payment solutions to our technology partners, merchants and resellers. With offices across 14 countries and unparalleled fintech expertise, we’ve transformed our combined organization into a diversified, global payments leader with massive scale and reach.”
SafeCharge CEO David Avgi added, “We are jointly creating an international payment giant with an unrivalled talent pool and technology stack. We are thrilled to be part of a bigger entity to further the adoption of the most innovative payments technology globally. The move will also provide our employees with more long-term career opportunities and be part of a global company, which we can all be very proud of.”
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