Exits & Deep Reads

Webull announces a $7B SPAC (TWIF 3/3)

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Hello Fintech Friends,

The Webull SPAC is just one of two potential $7 billion fintech deals announced this week... Stripe tendered an offer at $65 billion. Adyen passed $1 trillion in annual payment volume. Marqeta's total processing volume surged 33%.

Bet against fintech at your own peril.

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

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📖 Read of the Week

As always, Marc Rubinstein lays out a masterful overview of Capital One's Discover acquisition,

And Contrary dives into embedded finance, fintech infrastructure, and banking-as-a-service:

The rumors of fintech's death have been greatly exaggerated.

In our latest deep dive, we unpack:

• The explosion of fintech startups since the GFC
• The emergence (and death?) of banking-as-a-service
• The future shape of fintech infrastructure

Check it out below 👇… pic.twitter.com/wM8an6xsBI
— Contrary Research (@Contrary_Res) February 29, 2024

☯️ Exits

💻 IPOs & SPACs

Global stock trading platform Webull announced this week that it expects to go public in the second half of this year via combination with SK Growth Opportunities Corporation, a SPAC anchored by SK, the South Korean conglomerate, at a $7.3 billion valuation.
Klarna reported a $241 million net loss, but 22% revenue growth, as it prepares to IPO this year.

We may see more fintech IPOs and M&A now that Cross River is opening its own fintech investment bank.

🤝 M&A - Fintech

Financial conglomerate Fiserv and Amadeus IT Group are competing to acquire Shift4 Payments, a payments processor that has a market value of nearly $7 billion.
Ziff, a Mexican financial solutions provider, announced its acquisition of the digital lending company Arrenda.
Intapp, a provider of AI-powered software for professionals in capital markets, announced an agreement to acquire delphai, a German software company specializing in applied AI.
Nordic Capital, a European private equity firm, acquired financial institution risk management and regulatory compliance provider ActiveViam.
FTX settled a lawsuit that sought to claw back $323 million from acquiring Digital Assets DA AG, instead agreeing to sell the company back to its founders for $32.7 million.
Brokerage B. Riley is exploring a strategic sale of some of its assets as shares slump.

🏦 M&A - Bank and FinServ

SCB X, Thailand's biggest bank, agreed to buy consumer lender Home Credit Vietnam for $860 million to widen its regional footprint.
Spanish bank Santander is planning to buy a 33% stake in Spanish venture capital firm Seaya for an undisclosed sum.
Chinese fintech giant Ant Financial won an auction against investment firm Citadel for Credit Suisse’s China investment arm.
Italian bank UniCredit is evaluating an acquisition of private equity-owned banking tech and services provider Vodeno.
Barclays bank is selling off $1.1 billion of its US credit card debt to private equity group Blackstone.

Max Levchin: “Lending to small businesses is great until there is even a slightest number of small business bankruptcies and then you’re toast” https://t.co/jQPSN5U0uS
— Jevgenijs Kazanins (@jevgenijs) February 27, 2024

This is a breakthrough in practical application of AI!

Klarnas AI assistant, powered by @OpenAI, has in its first 4 weeks handled 2.3 m customer service chats and the data and insights are staggering:

- Handles 2/3 rd of our customer service enquires
- On par with humans on…
— Sebastian Siemiatkowski (@klarnaseb) February 27, 2024

Stripe's EBITDA profit is $100M, and they processed roughly $1 trillion in 2023, which means their profit margin is 100m/1tn = 0.01%.

Can't believe this is a $65bn company.
— Mengxi Lu (@mengxilu) February 29, 2024

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