SoftBank-backed OPay, the digital payments company focused on Nigeria, filed for a US listing and used the paperwork to show a sharp jump in earnings. Revenue more than doubled to $467.1M in the six months to June 30, from $197.5M a year earlier. Net income rose to $90.9M from $21.7M.
Payments, transfers and credit are offered to consumers and merchants across Nigeria, Indonesia, Egypt and Pakistan. As much as $200M will be invested by Stanbic Africa Holdings through a concurrent private placement, and before the offering SoftBank entities own a 6.6% stake, according to the filing.
Founder Yahui Zhou, a Chinese billionaire, raised $400M at a $2B valuation in 2021. American depositary shares would list on the NYSE under the symbol OPAY, with Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Standard Bank and CICC among the underwriters, and a secondary listing in Nigeria is planned afterwards.
The filing lands in a thin window for new listings, with elevated rates pushing several companies to postpone. OPay’s growth rate is doing the work of persuasion.
Why it matters: African fintech has been long on users and short on exits. A US listing at this scale would give the region its most consequential public-market test in years.
