Lightspeed Commerce, formerly known as Lightspeed POS, has announced plans to sell 7.7 million subordinate voting shares at a price of $93 USD per share through a public offering in Canada and the United States (US).
The offering, which remains subject to customary closing conditions, would give Lightspeed aggregate gross proceeds of over $716 million USD, prior to underwriting commission and offering costs. The deal is expected to close around August 11. Lightspeed initially disclosed plans to sell seven million shares Monday morning, but upsized its planned offering to 7.7 million shares Monday afternoon when it announced pricing.
UPDATE (08/11/21): The offering has officially closed and Lightspeed has secured approximately $688.4 million USD in net proceeds.
UPDATE (08/13/21): Lightspeed’s underwriters have exercised their over-allotment option in full, increasing Lightspeed’s aggregate gross proceeds by approximately $107.4 million USD, to a total of $823.5 million.
Lightspeed plans to use the fresh funding to strengthen its financial position and pursue its growth strategies.
In a May 27 short form base shelf prospectus, Lightspeed disclosed plans to raise up to $4 billion CAD over the next 25 months through new issues or secondary offerings. These types of offerings serve as a means for public companies to raise capital and can be used to support a variety of business strategies. Lightspeed’s latest offering would count towards this total.
Lightspeed intends to use the new capital to strengthen its financial position and pursue its growth strategies. These growth strategies include expanding Lightspeed’s customer location footprint, building on its successes in payments and financial solutions, accelerating its average revenue per user (ARPU) expansion by introducing new modules, expanding its presence within verticals, and pursuing “strategic and value-enhancing” acquisitions.
The proposed public offering is set to be underwritten by Morgan Stanley and Barclays as joint lead book-running managers, and supported by BMO Capital Markets and RBC Capital Markets. Lightspeed has granted the underwriters an over-allotment option to purchase an additional 1.155 million subordinate voting shares through the offering.
Founded in 2005, Lightspeed provides cloud-based commerce and point-of-sale software to retailers. The Montréal-based company, which trades on the TSX and NYSE under the symbol ‘LSPD,’ has made a number of major acquisitions over the past year, acquiring ShopKeep, Upserve, and Vend.
RELATED: Lightspeed sees Q1 2022 revenues surge as economies reopen
In June, Lightspeed revealed plans to acquire two California-based e-commerce companies, Ecwid and NuORDER, for a combined total of $925 million USD. During its Q1 2022 earnings call last week, Lightspeed said these acquisitions would help transform the company into a one-stop, e-commerce platform.
In the first quarter, Lightspeed saw strong revenue growth amid pandemic reopenings, posting total revenues of $115.9 million USD, an increase of 220 percent. The company attributed its increase in revenues to a combination of strong organic growth and its previous acquisitions. Lightspeed also generated a net loss of $49.3 million, compared to a net loss of $20.1 million during Q4 2021.
RELATED: Lightspeed to acquire two e-commerce companies for $925 million USD
Lightspeed said that its first-quarter results were boosted by economies reopening and the increasing adoption of its cloud-based commerce platform, but also noted the increasing threat of the Delta variant of COVID-19. During its latest earnings call, Lightspeed expressed caution regarding its short-term outlook given the unpredictability of the current environment, but expressed excitement about its longer term prospects.
Last week, Lightspeed also announced the general availability of Lightspeed Payments for hospitality merchants in Germany, Switzerland, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. Over the coming months, Lightspeeds plans to make its payments offering available to Asia-Pacific-based merchants.
Feature image courtesy of Lightspeed