FinTech unicorn Wise draws up plans for a dual-class share structure and plots a London float, Sky News reported.
These steps resemble Deliveroo’s recent offering of a dual-class share structure for its float on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
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The move seems to be designed to preserve voting control solely in the hands of Kristo Kaarmann, Wise’s co-founder and chief executive.
Wise has also recently appointed Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to steer it through its LSE float.
Some of those who are close to Wise, however, stated that by diversification of the special shares concerns about the excessive concentration of power under a single individual should be raised.
“The approach would reflect the contribution that these early providers of capital have made to building the company into what it has become today,” one of the people said to Sky News.
Wise’s float will make it one of several FinTech giants that decided to go public.
Wise announced a 70% growth in revenue over the last financial year to £302.6 million while being worth at estimated $5bn (£3.7bn) in a secondary fundraising last July.
The company has also announced it will hire 750 new staff members in the next 6 months in December.
The co-founders Hinrikus and Kaarmann, who were born in Estonia, founded the company amid frustration about the cost of sending money overseas.
“A flotation would make them both paper billionaires if estimates of the size of their shareholdings in TransferWise – they are thought to own roughly 40% between them – are correct,” Sky News reported.
The rebranded company Wise droped the part Transfer as a signal of moving on from the money-transfer focus of the company. “Ten years in, TransferWise is now Wise,” claimed the press release.
