Revolut, a financial technology company based in Britain, announced on Friday that it has sold secondary shares to both new and current investors, valuing the company at $45 billion, more than some of the largest banks in Europe.
Coatue, D1 Capital Partners, and current investor Tiger Global are leading the share sale, which allows current employees to cash out some of their shares, according to Revolut.
Revolut is one of the most valuable fintech companies in Europe, by this valuation.
Its $45 billion price tag makes it more than twice as valuable as the market capitalization of the French bank Societe Generale, presently valued at $19 billion, and the British bank Barclays, currently valued at $43 billion.
However, years of low profitability and new rules have hampered traditional European banks, limiting their valuations.
For instance, Barclays’ stock has only recovered to where it was ten years ago.
Revolut’s nine-year-old company is expected to grow at a faster rate than traditional lenders, according to investors.
With 45 million members worldwide, it reported a record pretax profit of 438 million pounds ($564.36 million) in 2023, demonstrating its tremendous growth.
Investors think the company, which was awarded a UK banking license last month, would be able to entice consumers looking for app-based banking away from high street banks and spare them the expense of running a branch network.
NO TIMELINE FOR IPO
Revolut, one of the few “fintechs” (financial services applications) to appear in Britain in the past ten years, was founded by CEO Nikolay Storonsky in 2015.
It provides financial services using an app instead of physical branches, and a 2021 fundraising valued it at $33 billion.
Laptops 1000After struggling for three years due to internal financial scrutiny, the company announced last month that it had finally obtained a UK banking license.
Regarding if CEO Storonsky had cashed in some of his stock and whether any current investors had decreased their investment, a Revolut representative declined to answer.
Regarding the sale’s size, the representative likewise declined to say.
A portion of Storonsky’s multibillion-dollar shareholding would be sold, according to earlier reports from Sky News. $500 million was the reported amount of the sale in the past.
