Shares in payment processing firm Nuvei Corp. started trading on the Toronto Stock Exchange on Thursday, raising $700 million in the biggest initial public offering of a technology company in the history of the TSX.
Founded in Montreal, Nuvei is a payment processing firm with almost 800 employees and about 50,000 customers who in the year up until the end of June processed more than $35 billion worth of transactions over the company’s network. A large portion of its customers are in the fast-growing world of sports betting.
Earlier this month the company announced it planned to sell 26 million shares on the TSX, priced between $20 and $22 apiece. But strong demand for the shares allowed the company to price its shares even higher on Wednesday, at $26 each.
That values the offering at more than $700 million US, enough to make the company the biggest initial public offering (or IPO) of a tech company in dollar terms in the history of the TSX — more than BlackBerry and Shopify’s IPOs were worth at the time.
When trading in the shares opened for institutional investors on the TSX Thursday, they jumped to roughly $45 a share, according to Bloomberg data.
BlackBerry, then known as Research in Motion, raised $100 million in its 1997 IPO. Eight years later, RIM was the most valuable company in Canada, worth about $67 billion at its peak.
Nuvei was valued at $2 billion last December when it raised $270 million from private investors, including Quebec’s pension plan, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec.
The company made $245 million worth of revenue last year but lost $69.5 million after expenses were deducted, according to regulatory filings.
Nuvei’s IPO comes as buzz around investing in the tech sector is high because several companies in the industry have proved resilient and experienced an uptick in business amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shares in Netflix, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Apple and other tech names have made huge gains during the pandemic, as millions of people stuck at home has created huge demand for online services.
Companies such as Nuvei are eager to get to market to tap into investor demand for tech shares.
According to analyst Stephanie Price with CIBC, 23 technology companies have gone public between June and August, raising $9.4 billion US in the process. On Wednesday, U.S. market watchers were agog as software firm Snowflake went public in an IPO, and promptly saw its stock price double on its first day of trading.
Almost 95 per cent of all North American IPOs this summer have been tech companies, with more to come.
“The rebound in technology names is a good sign for the private tech companies with plans to publicly list their shares in the coming weeks,” Price said in a note to clients.
As of the end of August, there were 211 technology companies listed on both TSX and TSX Venture Exchange, worth a combined $289 billion.
CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. has lowered the estimated cost of its Southeast Gateway pipeline project in Mexico.
It says it now expects the project to cost between US$3.9 billion and US$4.1 billion compared with its original estimate of US$4.5 billion.
The change came as the company reported a third-quarter profit attributable to common shareholders of C$1.46 billion or $1.40 per share compared with a loss of C$197 million or 19 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
Revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 30 totalled C$4.08 billion, up from C$3.94 billion in the third quarter of 2023.
TC Energy says its comparable earnings for its latest quarter amounted to C$1.03 per share compared with C$1.00 per share a year earlier.
The average analyst estimate had been for a profit of 95 cents per share, according to LSEG Data & Analytics.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
BCE Inc. reported a loss in its latest quarter as it recorded $2.11 billion in asset impairment charges, mainly related to Bell Media’s TV and radio properties.
The company says its net loss attributable to common shareholders amounted to $1.24 billion or $1.36 per share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of $640 million or 70 cents per share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, BCE says it earned 75 cents per share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 81 cents per share in the same quarter last year.
“Bell’s results for the third quarter demonstrate that we are disciplined in our pursuit of profitable growth in an intensely competitive environment,” BCE chief executive Mirko Bibic said in a statement.
“Our focus this quarter, and throughout 2024, has been to attract higher-margin subscribers and reduce costs to help offset short-term revenue impacts from sustained competitive pricing pressures, slow economic growth and a media advertising market that is in transition.”
Operating revenue for the quarter totalled $5.97 billion, down from $6.08 billion in its third quarter of 2023.
BCE also said it now expects its revenue for 2024 to fall about 1.5 per cent compared with earlier guidance for an increase of zero to four per cent.
The company says the change comes as it faces lower-than-anticipated wireless product revenue and sustained pressure on wireless prices.
BCE added 33,111 net postpaid mobile phone subscribers, down 76.8 per cent from the same period last year, which was the company’s second-best performance on the metric since 2010.
It says the drop was driven by higher customer churn — a measure of subscribers who cancelled their service — amid greater competitive activity and promotional offer intensity. BCE’s monthly churn rate for the category was 1.28 per cent, up from 1.1 per cent during its previous third quarter.
The company also saw 11.6 per cent fewer gross subscriber activations “due to more targeted promotional offers and mobile device discounting compared to last year.”
Bell’s wireless mobile phone average revenue per user was $58.26, down 3.4 per cent from $60.28 in the third quarter of the prior year.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
TORONTO – Canada Goose Holdings Inc. trimmed its financial guidance as it reported its second-quarter revenue fell compared with a year ago.
The luxury clothing company says revenue for the quarter ended Sept. 29 totalled $267.8 million, down from $281.1 million in the same quarter last year.
Net income attributable to shareholders amounted to $5.4 million or six cents per diluted share, up from $3.9 million or four cents per diluted share a year earlier.
On an adjusted basis, Canada Goose says it earned five cents per diluted share in its latest quarter compared with an adjusted profit of 16 cents per diluted share a year earlier.
In its outlook, Canada Goose says it now expects total revenue for its full financial year to show a low-single-digit percentage decrease to low-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a low-single-digit increase.
It also says it now expects its adjusted net income per diluted share to show a mid-single-digit percentage increase compared with earlier guidance for a percentage increase in the mid-teens.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
