Wise has revealed its intention of becoming a public company in the London stock exchange company via a direct listing. It is expected to be the biggest direct listing on the London Stock Exchange.
Formerly known as TransferWise, Wise was founded in 2011, and the company specializes in cross-border money transfers. Since its launch, Wise has enjoyed tremendous growth, with revenue growing from $422 million to $586 million in its most recent financial year. The company, as a result, rake in $57 million in profit before tax. Wise claims that this(profit) has been a feature of the company since 2017.
The company has expanded its business model to include (B2B) and cross border transaction. The company facilitates cross border transactions in third party services via Monzo and N26. On the other hand, Wise Business facilitate B2B transactions.
Wise joins the growing list of companies that have opted for direct listing this year when going. This includes companies like Coinbase, Slack, and Spotify. The choice to go public via direct listing implies that the fund Wise can raise is limited because it cannot raise additional capital via a direct listing. Secondly, Wise is confident about its ability to attract investors.
According to TechCrunch, Wise plans to introduce a dual-class share structure, which means that all of Wise’s existing shareholders will get more votes per share for a while.
