Finablr agrees to takeover offer from Prism | Financial Times:
Finablr, the payments group that revealed $1.3bn in undisclosed debt earlier this year, said it had accepted a takeover offer from a group called Prism Advance Solutions.
Few details about Prism or the transaction were provided by Finablr, a UAE group that listed in London in 2019 and was founded by BR Shetty, the Indian entrepreneur behind scandal-ridden NMC Health.
Guy Rothschild, the co-founder of Prism, said that he looked forward to working with authorities in the UAE to revive the company.
“We acknowledge that it’s going to be a challenging journey and that there would be difficulties along the way, but we are confident that with the support from all parties involved we will realise Finablr’s full potential,” Mr Rothschild said in a statement on Tuesday.
UAE Exchange, the Abu Dhabi-based remittance house at the heart of Finablr, was taken under the supervision of the UAE central bank in March. The company’s Travelex unit, one of the biggest foreign exchange providers in the UK, was placed into administration in August with the loss of about 1,300 jobs.
According to his LinkedIn profile, Mr Rothschild runs a consultancy in Switzerland and is a director of UK-registered Prism, which was set up in November last year.
Finablr described Prism’s planned takeover as a “game-changing” transaction in the Middle East, coming just weeks after the UAE normalised relations with Israel. In the statement released by Finablr, Mr Rothschild claimed it was the “first major UAE-Israeli commercial transaction”, without giving details.
The transaction will provide Finablr working capital and let the group restructure its debts, the UAE-based company said.
Finablr shares were suspended in March as it faced a liquidity squeeze prompted by coronavirus and concerns over the accounting scandal at sister company NMC, the healthcare group.
In July, Finablr appointed law firm Skadden to help investigate potential wrongdoing and theft within the payments group. Mr Shetty has blamed the alleged fraud at NMC and Finablr on various members of their former management.
Finablr chief executive Bhairav Trivedi thanked its employees for supporting the company through trying times. “Our employees have worked at reduced or zero pay for some months,” he said. “We now enter a new chapter in the company’s history.”
Subject to regulatory approvals, the transaction is expected to be completed within four weeks, Finablr said.
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