TransFirst’s timing of its IPO is intriguing given the number of payments companies with IPO announcements, says Kurt Strawhecker, managing partner of Omaha, Neb.-based The Strawhecker Group, a payments advisory firm.
“The list includes Worldpay, First Data and Square,” Strawhecker says via email. “This would appear to indicate the overall strength and continued growth potential of the payments industry—especially in the face of a few other IPOs so far this calendar year.”
It may not hurt that payments is getting a lot of attention this year, especially among the broader consumer press because of the EMV migration and mobile commerce, he says. “Current public payment stocks such as Visa, Vantiv and MasterCard have been strong performers, so it may feel like a ripe time from the perspective of these investment entities to get these companies back into the public markets,” he says.
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