As reported by MTLinTech in late August, Montreal’s Nuvei released its IPO last week raising about $730 million US on the TSX. The stock price took off in the first days of trading, closing on Tuesday, the third day of trading, up more than 30% from the IOP price of $26 US.

Private equity form Novacap also sold some of its stake in Nuvei, taking back about $75 million on its investment. Nuvei’s website states that after its last raise ($358 million in December 2019) the company’s valuation was somewhere just north of $2.6 billion. As of the closing bell on September 22, the company’s market capitalization alone was near $6-billion, making it one of the most valuable tech stocks in Canada.

Concurrently with the closing of its initial public offering, the Company also closed a direct private placement of 1,094,132 additional subordinate voting shares to certain employees, customers, suppliers and other business partners outside Canada in the amount of $28.4 million US, pushing the total to over $830 million US.

David Lewin, Senior Partner at Novacap, said “Since our initial investment three years ago at a valuation of approximately US$430 million, Novacap’s active support and expertise helped Nuvei optimize its operations and become a platform for strategic acquisitions. During this time, Nuvei significantly increased the scale of the business, the number of markets it serves, and its geographic reach.”

The end result is that after founding the company all the way back in 2003 when it was known as Pivotal Payments, CEO Philip Fayer has just become a billionaire, divesting about $1.5 billion in equity.

The offering was made through a syndicate of underwriters led by Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse Securities, BMO Capital Markets and RBC Capital Markets, as joint active bookrunners, and Citigroup Global Markets Canada Inc. and Merrill Lynch Canada Inc., as bookrunners, and National Bank Financial Inc., Scotiabank, TD Securities Inc., CIBC Capital Markets, Raymond James Ltd., Cowen and Company, LLC, Stifel Nicolaus Canada Inc. and William Blair & Company, L.L.C.