Exits & Deep Reads

Europe's banks open up their wallets (TWIF 11/5)

BBC - Your pictures on the theme of 'autumn walks'

Hello Fintech Friends,

If you're here for late-week fintech news, you came to the right place.

As a reminder, I publish all our headlines on Fridays, all our fundraising news on Saturdays, and all our M&A news and deeper reads on Sundays.

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This Sunday features:

Three planned fintech IPOs and a SPAC.
Not one, not two, but three announced and rumored Italian bank acquisitions in the last week.
A $10.5 billion megadeal between Nasdaq and Adenza, a $103 million crypto exchange acquisition in Thailand, and $250 paid by Wex for Payzer, as the fleet card provider gears up for an acquiring spree.
And a raft of Q3 fintech market data has become available, thanks to CB Insights.

Please find another week of fintech exits and deep reads below. (👍👎 Have feedback for us? Let us know!)

📺

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📖 Reads of the Week

First, some sobering data on American financial health, in the form of the highest delinquencies on auto loan payments in three decades:

However, most American households are actually doing pretty well, financially! The average (not median) American household is now worth over $1 million, thanks to "college, savings, bull markets and timing." (More on median household wealth below.)

A mixed report on fintech in Q3, from CB Insights:

Global fintech funding fell 3% QoQ to hit $7.4 billion.
US fintech funding saw a 5% drop in Q3’23.
But despite a drop in deals, digital lending secured the most funding among fintech sectors in Q3’23 — funding to the space rose by 70% QoQ to hit $1.7 billion.

Private equity is diving into a new growth vertical: owning your retirement savings providers.

And is fintech creating the conditions for another potential bank stress outcome?

☯️ Exits

💻 IPOs & SPACs

Plaid brought on a new CFO to prepare for an eventual IPO that is hoped to value the financial data infrastructure company above its proposed 2020 $5.3 billion sale price to Visa and above its $13.4 billion 2021 fundraise valuation.
Apex Fintech, one of the largest clearing and settlement infrastructure providers and platforms for the investing industry, is considering plans for a 2024 IPO, after pulling plans to go public via SPAC in 2021.
Klarna established a UK holding company as a step towards a public listing.
It’s been a while since we’ve seen a fintech-focused SPAC! FG Merger II filed for a $75 million IPO to target a company in the North American financial services market.

“We’re sending a cake to the next fintech startup that goes public.”

🤝 M&A - Fintech

Equities exchange Nasdaq agreed to acquire Adenza, a software provider primarily used by banks and brokerages, for $10.5 billion. As part of the deal, Adenza's private equity owner Thoma Bravo will get a 14.9% stake in Nasdaq, making it one of the biggest shareholders in the exchange operator.
Wex, a corporate payment solutions provider for businesses that focuses on travel payment and corporate cards, announced that it will acquire Payzer, a maker of HVAC & plumbing business software, for $250 million. Matt Janiga notes on Twitter that Wex is also hiring an M&A attorney, a potential signal of more market-expansion acquisitions to come.
Package delivery company UPS will acquire Happy Returns, a reverse logistics company that enables frictionless, no-box, no-label returns for merchants and consumers, from PayPal, who acquired the company in 2021.
Kasikorn Bank, Thailand's second-largest bank, acquired a 97% stake in crypto exchange Satang for $103 million.
Togetherwork, a provider of group management software and payments, is reportedly seeking a buyer.
Shift4, an integrated payments and commerce software builder, completed its previously announced acquisition of Finaro, a cross-border ecommerce payments provider and fully-licensed bank.
French venture capital firm Founders Future acquired profitable equity crowdfunding platform Sowefund.
The European Payments Initiative, a bank-backed card network venture set up to build a rival to Mastercard and Visa in Europe, acquired Dutch payment scheme iDeal and Luxembourg's Payconiq.
German subscription management and recurring billing software solutions provider Billwerk+ announced the acquisition of its rival plenigo.
Orbyt, a CFO software provider for AR automation and integrated payments, acquired Telia’s Finnish activities dedicated to providing eInvoice services.
UK embedded subscription management platform Youtility was acquired by Squeeze, a US insurance price comparison site.
Vista Equity partners completed its previously-announced $4 billion buyout of customer engagement and payments provider EngageSmart.

🏦 M&A - Bank and FinServ

Stock of Italian bank and payments network provider Nexi jumped 19% to around $7 as rumors circulated of a potential buyout from private equity firm CVC Capital Partners.
Italian bank UniCredit offered to buy the Greek state’s holding in Alpha Bank and agreed to acquire Alpha’s Romanian unit for €300 million in cash.
Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo acquired Romania’s First Bank from its private equity owner JC Flowers for about €130 million.
BBVA is consolidating its three tech firms into one new company, called BBVA Technology, which will employ 3,000 of their staff and offer a more "strategic focus."
Canadian Tire Corp. bought back a 20% stake in its financial-services business from Bank of Nova Scotia for C$895 million ($647 million) in an all-cash transaction.
Cadence Bank will sell its insurance brokerage unit to insurance brokerage Arthur J Gallagher for $904 million.
UK fund manager abrdn will sell its private equity unit to Brazil's Patria Investments for about £60 million.
Charlesbank Capital, a private equity firm, made a majority growth investment into Petra, a fund administrator serving private investment firms.
Private equity firm Blue Owl is weighing an acquisition of rival private credit lender Hayfin Capital Management.
Wealth management provider Canaccord Genuity is exploring a potential acquisition of Close Brothers' wealth management operations.
Canada's House of Commons has asked Ottawa to reject Royal Bank of Canada's proposed C$13.5 billion acquisition of HSBC's domestic unit on anticompetitive grounds.

The wealth of a typical American household is way up since the pandemic.

Inequality is down.

Debt-to-income ratios are falling.

Racial gaps, education gaps, urban-rural gaps, and age gaps have decreased. https://t.co/jHhsHH3awk

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🥳🥳🥳 pic.twitter.com/U31aiXe1be
— Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦 (@Noahpinion) October 27, 2023

Worth checking out the @SiliconVlyBank 10/23 fintech outlook deck.https://t.co/GHn1CUVWQC pic.twitter.com/3NbF1iEtw0
— Jared Franklin (@jsfranklin221) October 26, 2023

Banks LARP at digital pic.twitter.com/rYMSNQlU0X
— Simon Taylor (@sytaylor) October 30, 2023

bet. pic.twitter.com/NKUfp6yJmH
— ST (@seyitaylor) October 27, 2023

Last week's proposed rule by the CFPB to codify open banking into US law is the outcome of a lonnngggg spate of regulatory conversations between the agency our industry.https://t.co/ZTrBJu8W8W

A group of us were running around DC 5+ years ago stressing the need for consumers… pic.twitter.com/dGL2ltMqD1
— Nik (@NikMilanovic) October 23, 2023