OPay

Fintech · Digital Payments

IPO

OPay withdraws $304M NYSE IPO hours after pricing at $4B valuation

An unnamed foreign regulator's inquiry triggered the reversal, a reminder that fintech listings can unravel within hours of pricing.

• OPay priced its NYSE IPO at $19 per ADS on Oct 29, raising $304M at a roughly $4B valuation, then withdrew the offering the next day citing an unnamed foreign regulator's inquiry before trading ever began.
• Founded in 2018 by Chinese billionaire Yahui Zhou, who also founded Kunlun Tech (former owner of Grindr), OPay offers payments, transfers, savings and loans to about 50 million monthly users across Nigeria, Indonesia and other emerging markets.
• The offering priced at the bottom of its $19-$21 range; OPay and its underwriters mutually agreed to terminate the Oct 29 underwriting agreement rather than proceed to settlement.
• Shares were indicated to open between $16.25 and $16.75 on debut day, well below the $19 offer price, before the NYSE halted trading around 3:30pm with not a single share exchanged.
• SoftBank entities held a 6.6% pre-IPO stake in OPay, which had last raised $400M in 2021 at a $2B valuation, meaning the attempted listing would have doubled its worth in five years.
• OPay's board had already approved a planned secondary listing on the Nigerian Exchange to follow its US debut; that plan's timing is now unclear after the NYSE withdrawal.
• The abrupt unwind shows how a single undisclosed regulatory inquiry can collapse a priced IPO within a day, raising the diligence bar for emerging-market fintechs courting US capital markets.