Helios Investments partially exits Egypt’s Fawry through a successful IPO

Last week Thursday, eleven-year-old Egyptian electronic payments company Fawry, went public on the Egyptian Exchange (EGX). It was the first IPO in Egypt for this year and it was oversubscribed.

Listed at a price of EGP 6.46, it soared 30% to close on the first day of trading to give the company a market cap close to EGP 6 billion or $366 million.

The IPO comprised the secondary sale of 36.0% of Fawry’s share capital, which included: (i) 21.2% to three cornerstone investors: National Bank of Egypt, Banque Misr and Actis (“Cornerstone Offering”); (ii) 9.8% to institutional and high net worth investors (“Institutional Offering”); and (iii) 5.0% to retail investors (“Retail Offering”).

Helios Investments also announced its partial exit from Fawry through the heavily subscribed IPO.

In 2015, Helios invested in Fawry as the lead investor, alongside MENA Long-Term Value Fund, and Egyptian-American Enterprise. They acquired 85% of the company at a valuation of $100 million.

“The private placement was oversubscribed by 16 times and the IPO by 30 times. Egyptians represented 80.3% of the IPO and 50% of the private placement. Arabs & Foreigners represented 19.7% of the IPO and 49.3 of the private,” the Egyptian Exchange said in a statement on Thursday.

Founded in 2008, Fawry offers financial services to consumers and businesses by providing a convenient and reliable way to pay bills and purchase goods and services. Fawry’s unparalleled broad network of payment channels constitutes more than 105,000 in-store service points across more than 300 cities, 250,000 registered online portals users, 10,000 ATMs, access to 12 million registered mobile wallets, and 65 Fawry Plus locations. Supplemented by its longstanding relationships with Egypt’s leading banks, corporates and service providers, Fawry’s value proposition encompasses financial inclusion, opportunities for business growth, and cost-efficient solutions.

Since 2015, Helios has made three investments in Egypt: Fawry, TPAY (the largest direct carrier billing provider in Egypt, with operations across 16 countries in the Middle East and North Africa), and Misr Hytech (the leading breeder and producer of proprietary agricultural seeds in Egypt, and one of the Middle East and Africa’s largest independent seed companies).

Since 2016, Helios has been considering the sale of its investments in Interswitch, the largest payment processing service provider in Nigeria also through a dual stock-market listing in London and Lagos. It paid $96 million to acquire a majority equity interest in Interswitch Limited in 2010.

It suspended plans for  some time but has hired advisers to resurrect plans for a listing this year.