Brisbane’s Ezidebit sold to Global Payments for $305m

THIS man just joined the ranks of Queensland’s wealthiest with a $300 million deal. And the secret of his success might surprise you.

MICHAEL Dempsey joined the ranks of Queensland’s richest people yesterday – and put his success down to being “a little lazy”.

The 50-year-old Brisbane entrepreneur – and co-owner of the Normanby Hotel – sold his electronic payments processing business, Ezidebit, to a US company for $305 million.

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The father-of-two will pocket $150 million from the deal, while his brother Dan and sister Megan Welsh will share about $60 million.

“I haven’t really woken up to it,” Mr Dempsey said as the deal went through.

“I think the biggest change will be looking at my bank account and thinking, where did all those zeros come from?”

Ezidebit, which is used by 16,000 businesses to collect regular direct-debit, BPAY and e-commerce payments, was founded in 1999 out of Mr Dempsey’s own frustration at trying to get parents to pay bills at two childcare centres he ran.

“I was on the phone every night, asking when people were going to pay me,” he said.

A QUT engineering graduate, Mr Dempsey had a problem-solving approach which kicked in.

“I have the ability to get to the heart of a problem pretty quickly. Actually, I’m probably inherently a little lazy as well, so I look for a simple ­solution which gives me free time,” the keen surfer said.

“I’ll work very hard for a solution and then go ‘phew, now I can relax’. I think it’s a good trait.”

Back then, direct debit was the domain of large institutions. Ezidebit pioneered systems for small businesses.

From a $300 turnover in its first month, Ezidebit now processes more than $3.5 billion of transactions each year in Australia, New Zealand and, recently, Hong Kong.

Seeking more capital to expand overseas, the company launched a dual process of exploring a stockmarket listing or a whole or partial sale.

Global Payments, a $6 billion Nasdaq-listed company based in Atlanta, completed the purchase of Ezidebit yesterday. Mr Dempsey said he was proud of taking “a homegrown Brisbane business to the world stage”.

He plans a year-long holiday in Europe with wife Stef and their children, Yasmin, 4, and Matthew, 3, before thinking about future plans.