Middle Eastern wealth funds to participate in Japanese PayPay IPO
Sovereign wealth funds from the UAE and Qatar have agreed to participate as cornerstone investors in PayPay Corporation’s upcoming US listing, a Japanese digital payments company affiliated with SoftBank Group. The offering is expected to raise about $1.1 billion.
Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (ADIA) and Qatar Holding, a subsidiary of the Qatar Investment Authority, committed to purchasing shares in PayPay for up to $220 million. The investment will be made alongside Visa International Service Association, according to a filing submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing did not disclose how much each sovereign fund individually plans to invest.
As part of the offering, PayPay Corporation will sell 31.1 million US depositary shares. In addition, SoftBank Vision Fund II, a SoftBank subsidiary, intends to sell 23.9 million shares on the Nasdaq exchange.
Bloomberg reported that PayPay postponed the start of its formal marketing efforts due to uncertainty surrounding geopolitical tensions in the Middle East. The listing is currently expected to be priced on March 11.
PayPay is a Japanese mobile payment and digital wallet service launched in 2018 by SoftBank and Yahoo Japan. The smartphone app lets users link bank accounts, pay for goods or services by scanning QR codes or barcodes at stores or online, and send money and manage cashless transactions. The company has quickly gained previlince becoming one of the biggest in the Japanese fintech ecosystem.
The deal follows several other recent investments by ADIA in public offerings. Last month, the fund joined the IPO of Indian renewable energy firm Clean Max Enviro Energy Solutions as an anchor investor.
ADIA also participated as a cornerstone investor in the listing of Chinese artificial intelligence startup MiniMax. The company’s share price doubled on its first day of trading on the Hong Kong stock exchange.
