Paysafe Earning More than Double After Skrill Takeover
Published on by Andrew Mills
Paysafe, the owner of Neteller and Paysafecard, and formally known as Optimal Payments, has seen revenues rise by 118% year-on-year for the trading period up to 30th June, 2016, up to $486.7 million.
Skrill takeover
Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were up by 189% to $144.2 million.Paysafe attributed this growth to $1 billion reverse takeover of Skrill, a former direct rival of Paysafe, as well as increased profitability.At the point of completion on the Skrill takeover, the projections were for an annual $40 million of synergies, however Paysafe now expects to exceed this anticipated amount.Paysafe also expects to see higher annual revenue than the $960 million original expected, saying that “as a result of the exceptional half” the number is likely to be closer to $970-990 million.
Very strong growth
Joel Leonoff, Paysafe’s president and chief executive, said of this year’s revenues:”We have again delivered very strong growth as our increasingly diversified payments business expands further across pay-before, pay-now and pay-later products and services.“I am particularly pleased with the level of cash generated during the first half. Additionally, by completing the integration of Skrill more rapidly than we initially expected, we have been able to start work on developing our next-generation data platform and global merchant onboarding capabilities earlier than anticipated.”Paysafe’s takeover of Skrill was completed around a year ago, having been officially announced in August of 2015.The €720 million acquisition, which took place while Paysafe was still known as Optimal Payments, create an enterprise worth over €1 billion.The deal’s intentions were clear, with Mr Leonoff saying:“Together, we are a stronger, more diversified business, which is better able to compete on a global basis…“Our confidence in extracting the resulting cost and revenue synergies remains very high.”A statement that has proven entirely accurate in the first six months of 2016.