Latitude Financial Ahmed Fahour’s fortune swings with float pricing
You win some, you lose some.
On Friday, organisers of the Latitude Financial float priced the pay upstart’s shares at the very bottom of their range ahead of next week’s institutional bookbuild for stock and sharemarket debut.
The $2-a-share issue price, from a mooted price range that ran up to $2.25, saw a few million dollars evaporate before Latitude boss Ahmed Fahour’s eyes.
On the company’s debut, Fahour will have 12.6 million Latitude shares that at $2 each are worth just over $25m. At the top end of the pricing range they would have been worth $28.4m.
So let’s chalk him down $3m.
But the master negotiator is too smart not to have a Plan B.
If Latitude stock runs hot when it lists next week, Fahour will be able to claw some of the paper loss back via the generous issuing of $22.25m worth of shares that chairman Mike Tilley and the Latitude board have set as a performance incentive.
Based on a share price of $2 that means the former Aussie Post boss Fahour gets 11.125 million Latitude shares. (He would have received 9.9 million if the stock had been priced at $2.25.)
That gives him more skin in the game and more capital upside if Latitude shares do well after they list next Friday.
Plenty of reason for the LeBron James of buy-now, pay-later finance to stay motivated.
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