No buyer materializes for FTX (TWIF 11/13)

And Bill.com, Worldline, and Tribal all go shopping for fintech acquisitions.

Hello Fintech Friends,

We are getting ready for December’s Abu Dhabi and Dubai Fintech Trek!

Part of the experience will be to take attendees to cultural activities and restaurants serving local food, so that people can get a feel for the Gulf. Does anyone have recommendations?

Please find another week of fintech exits and deep reads below.

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☯️ Exits

🤝 M&A - Fintech

As everyone reading this newsletter should know by now, this week, FTX, the world’s seventh-biggest crypto exchange, encountered insolvency and was forced to look at strategic sale options due to a run on the bank. Its rival Binance, the world’s largest exchange, signed a non-binding agreement to acquire FTX, but later walked away from the acquisition after one day of audits. Meanwhile, the parent entity is trying to sell its ring-fenced US subsidiary, FTX.us, to rivals Gemini or Kraken. The turmoil is caused ripples throughout digital currency markets - with bitcoin tumbling 11% as of writing. It remains to be seen what the fallout is from the contagion of FTX’s collapse.
French payments giant Worldline is boosting its presence in Italy through the acquisition of Banco Desio’s merchant acquiring business for €100 million.
Railsr, a UK banking and compliance software provider formerly known as Railsbank, which just last month announced a $46m Series C, reportedly shopping for a buyer.
Business-focused fintech giant Bill will acquire financial planning and analysis software builder Finmark.
Latin American corporate payments provider Tribal* announced its acquisition of Paykii, a B2B cross-border bill pay platform.
Indian small business-focused neobank startup ZikZuk acquired tax e-filing platform TaxSpanner.
Prevu, a digital homebuying platform, acquired the assets of Reali, which in August announced it was shutting down after raising a $100 million Series B a year prior.

🏦 M&A - Bank and FinServ

Alternative asset manager Canyon Partners is exploring selling itself.
The Irish government sold 5% of Allied Irish Banks to institutional investors for €396.6 million.
Australian fund manager Perpetual rejected a second private equity takeover proposal at a price of A$1.89 billion.