MenuPay – a very likely M&A candidate
2019-06-26 09:35Please note: Community posts are written by its members and not by Redeye’s research department. As a reader you’re always encouraged to critically analyze the content.
MenuPay has released the results of its recent new issue – the company is now debt-free and has its cash box filled. MenuPay can now move forward on an international scale with its truly globally unique digital concept. The concept and the company will be very attractive acquisition target for many players in the international arena, both in payments- and e.g. restaurant-technology. Also international takeaway companies could enhance and differentiate through licensing or acquisition of MenuPay.
The MenuPay concept is truly unique and top-of-the-top in terms of its modern digital approach connecting the corporate needs with the restaurants’ need, trough the B2B app and thus creating a real win-win cooperation. In no other country than Denmark (with Sweden just staring) has this concept yet been introduced. In several countries one can find analog concepts in the market that will be put to rest or die slowly when this fully digital concept will be introduced. This will happen as soon as mobile payment maturity also reaches UK, continental Europe and the US. The Nordics, the Baltics and a few Asian countries are already in 2019 fully mature for mobile payments. The change is prone to go very fast elsewhere, especially in countries where card payments are commonplace. Markets like Germany may take a little longer time.
A long list of giants will sooner or later show interest for MenuPay. An acquired MenuPay is easy to plug in at any of the giants giving them a 3-5 year head start into this interesting B2B business where relations to large corporates is important.
ApplePay, GooglePay and SamsungPay are maybe not the most likely but should definitely be on the list. The same applies to platform companies like Visa and MasterCard. More likely acquirors of MenuPay are:
Payment companies
American Express US - NYSE - mcap 104 billion USD
Ayden Holland – Euronext – mcap 21 billion Euro
Paypal US – Nasdaq – mcap 137 billion USD
Paysafe Group UK - PE owned by Blackstone/CVC Capital
Checkout.com UK - PE/VC owned by InsightPartners/DST
Klarna Sweden - PE/VC owned by Seqouia/GeneralAtlantic/DST
Restaurant technology (incl payments) - excluding Point of Sales (POS) software - also possible acquirer
Edenred(Rikskuponger) France – Euronext, mcap 10.8 billion EUR
Paytronix Systems US – PE GreenHill Partners
Dinova US - PE Frontier Capital
The Dining Club UK - PE Bridgestone
Takeaway giants (most of these need to enhance/differentiate vs the others)
Delivery Hero Germany – Frankfurt SE - mcap 7.7 billion EUR
Deliveroo UK – crème de la crème PE/VC incl Amazon
Just Eat UK – London SE – market cap 4.3 billion GBP
Takeaway Holland – Euronext - mcap 3,8 billion EUR
GrubHub US – NYSE – mcap 6,5 billion USD
Wolt Nordic “almost unicorn” - just got 130 musd financing
It is quite unusual that a company like MenuPay is not developed with venture capital and a high expansion rate, but rather through a smaller market listing since 2017. Venture Capital understands the potential & mathematics of exponential growth while this has been harder to accomplish so far through the listing at Spotlight.
MenuPay is now, however, well-funded to reach profitability in Demark and to to introduce forcefully in Sweden and other Scandinavian markets as well as to further enhance the technology and it competitive advantages. The latter will be in place after summer. The company has as strategy to license the concept to most markets except the closest. Possible licensees will probably be found among the companies listed above or the analog competitors that, if to be considered, need to be well-financed and equipped with a strong incentive of making total market shift from analog (books/coupons) to the digital MenuPay concept.
Even if valued extremely low in the present new issue, most of the above giants would have no problems whatsoever to, in a very competitive situation, paying, in excess of 100 musd, i.e. in excess of 28 sek/share or in excess of 20 times the last new issue price, to get hold of the concept. It’s a matter of business enhancement versus corporates who are clients already (or could become) and to differentiate versus competitors. All or almost all of the listed companies above are extremely well-funded and 100 musd is peanuts to be able to take control over the concept and leverage it almost globally in a few years. The likelihood is high that MenuPay will be one major share climbers the coming 12-24 months.
Please comment if you see any other additional potential acquirer of MenuPay?