Lightspeed CEO Dasilva Says Company Is ‘Open’ to Going Private
(Bloomberg) -- The head of Canada’s Lightspeed Commerce Inc. said recent talks about a potential private equity buyout of payments firm Nuvei Corp. have him thinking about whether his company should do the same.
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“Nuvei is weighing whether it can do more as a private company,” Lightspeed Interim Chief Executive Officer and founder Dax Dasilva said in an interview with La Presse, a Montreal-based news site. “People have made the same comment to me about Lightspeed.”
“I still believe that the stock market is a good place for Lightspeed, but when you look at what’s happening, you wonder if going private would be a better option,” Dasilva said. “We are always open to these discussions.”
Lightspeed shares jumped 5% to C$19.01 as of 9:45 a.m. in Toronto, giving the company a market capitalization of C$2.9 billion ($2.1 billion).
Montreal-based Lightspeed, which makes point-of-sale software used by restaurants and other businesses, went public five years ago at C$16 a share and eventually soared to more than C$155 during the 2021 frenzy for speculative tech stocks.
But in September of that year, short seller Spruce Point Capital Management released a negative report on Lightspeed, causing a slide in the shares from which it has never recovered. Lightspeed closed last week at C$18.11 in Toronto.
Nuvei, which is also based in Montreal, announced on March 17 that it’s reviewing expressions of interest in a potential transaction, responding to a Wall Street Journal report that private equity firm Advent International is in talks to take over the company.
In early February, Lightspeed’s then-CEO, JP Chauvet, hinted about potential acquisitions in a conference call with analysts and said the company had a “tip” toward growth over profitability. Those comments helped send the shares down 24% in one day.
A week later, Chauvet left the post and Dasilva returned as interim CEO.
Read More: Lightspeed Rises as Dasilva Returns, Promises Profitability
(Updates with share price move in fourth paragraph.)
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