Paysafe Group Plc (LON:PAYS) saw its shares plummet 9% on Friday, as two of its major shareholders exited their investment in the payment services company.
Private investment firms CVC Capital Partners and Investcorp Technology Partners announced late Thursday their intention to sell their entire 7.3% stake in Paysafe, comprising 35.1 million Paysafe shares. The shares were to be sold through an accelerated bookbuild with institutional investors, handled by investment banks Barclays as bookrunner and Canaccord Genuity as co-lead on the transaction. Paysafe had closed Thursday at £3.68 per share.
On Friday, the shares were all sold at an average price of £3.46, while Paysafe shares continued to fall during the day, closing at £3.37, down 9% from Thursday’s close.
Paysafe offers digital wallet and electronic stored value solutions through its Skrill and NETELLER brands, and Paysafecard online prepaid solutions. The company was created by the reverse takeover by Optimal Payments (which operated NETELLER) of Skrill earlier this year in a deal valued at $1.2 billion. The merged company later changed its name to Paysafe and moved its share listing to the main market of the London Stock Exchange, in part to help facilitate more liquidity for shareholders looking to sell.
It will be interesting to see how Paysafe shares react today. It is not unusual for the shares of companies selling large blocks of stock to drop, as the demand-supply balance falls squarely in the ‘supply’ category.