Adyen Doubles in Debut in Year's Biggest European Tech IPO

Adyen Doubles in Debut in Year's Biggest European Tech IPO
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Adyen, a Dutch payments processor whose clients include Netflix and Spotify, more than doubled in its trading debut in Amsterdam, according to Bloomberg.

The shares, which priced at 240 euros apiece in Europe’s biggest technology public offering of the year, reached 503.90 euros early Wednesday, before retreating to 436.55. Adyen’s market value of 12.8 billion euros already exceeds some long-established financial companies, such as Commerzbank.

Adyen is one of a new breed of technology firms challenging the big banks and credit card issuers who have long controlled systems for processing payments in stores and online. With a roster of A-list clients, from Facebook to Uber, Adyen generated more than 1 billion euros in revenue in 2017. It made headlines this year by winning EBay as a customer, displacing PayPal.

The share surge is the more surprising because Adyen’s initial public offering, the third-largest in Europe this year, came after several companies struggled to sell stock amid market turbulence and political uncertainty. Issuers in the region raised about $23 billion and postponed or withdrew IPOs worth close to $6 billion.

For some, the share surge suggests another tech bubble is brewing, this time among financial technology firms. At its current price, Adyen is trading at almost 100 times its projected 2018 EBITDA, or earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization.