WiseTech’s Richard White gets $43.5m Kyckr out of acquisition

WiseTech CEO Richard White has made his largest acquisition to date, picking up Kyckr for $43.5m.

WiseTech founder Richard Wise

WiseTech founder and billionaire Richard White has delivered on his promise to acquire more businesses early this year, picking up verification provider Kyckr for $43.5m.

The acquisition, the biggest to date for Mr White, arrives as verification services are becoming increasingly popular among business groups, with many start-ups popping up in the space.

Headquartered in Sydney, Kyckr provides financial companies with know your customer (KYC) tech solutions, helping banks and other businesses meet their anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering requirements. The business aggregates and structures data to provide real-time B2B advice and risk management.

Mr White made the purchase via his personal investment arm RealWise, which in July last year entered into a scheme of agreement to purchase Kyckr at 8c per share, representing a 63.3 per cent premium. The offer from Mr White was unsolicited.

Prior to the acquisition, Mr White owned 122,346,906 shares in Kyckr, or about 22.76 per cent of the business, which he bought 2019, causing its share price to jump 90 per cent in one day.

Kyckr chief executive Ian Henderson.

Mr White, a former rock music guitar technician who once plucked strings for AC/DC, was most recently ranked 14th on The List: Australia’s richest 250, with an estimated wealth of $5.94bn. He founded WiseTech Global in 1994. Today his shares account for 40 per cent of the business.

The acquisition would allow corporates customers “to replace manual processes and aggregate real-time data” which would help improve “compliance” and assist with anti-money laundering and other financial crime, Mr White said. The market businesses operate in is “increasingly high-risk, complex, time-consuming and costly,” he said.

Kyckr would continue evolving its verification services, said chief executive Ian Henderson. The business would soon be able “to enable businesses to navigate highly complex and dynamic compliance and counterparts risk management challenges”, Mr Henderson said.

Mr White’s WiseTech was one of few Australian technology companies to escape the pandemic largely unscathed. Its main business exists within the logistics industry where it provides software solutions.

Originally published as WiseTech’s Richard White gets $43.5m Kyckr out of acquisition