Finablr is sinking before it has learnt to swim | Financial Times:
Finablr, the cross-border payments business, has barely had time to float let alone sink. But it is sinking and within little more than a year of being listed. On Tuesday, its board announced it was giving the nod to flogging off its remaining assets after a jeremiad of woes. It is typically back-to-front.
This is the Abu Dhabi-headquartered group that was listed on the London market in 2019 by BR Shetty, the tycoon who also brought to us the muddle that was NMC Health.
In the past year or so, Finablr has found more than $1bn of debt it did not know about, has put its flagship asset Travelex in the UK into administration, appointed legal eagles to probe possible malfeasance and misappropriation of assets, missed its accounting deadlines, lost its auditor and suspended its shares. How much better it would have been to know more before the group hit the public markets.
Now the board has approved an offer to settle its debts and bring in some needed working capital. Other companies might establish deal terms before going ahead. Not Finablr. All it has told shareholders, who must vote the sale through, is the name of the bidder — Prism Advance Solutions, a recently formed UK registered group fronted by Guy Rothschild, a multilingual Belgian residing in Zug. Mr Rothschild — a former finance chief of Maclaren UK, the baby buggy business, and sundry others — said the acquisition is the “first major UAE-Israeli commercial transaction”. We have to take his word for it. The Israeli connections are as hazy as the terms of the pact.
Finablr’s board under Michael Tomalin, a City veteran and chairman since April 2019, talks of completing a deal within four weeks “subject to all legal approvals being obtained”. The company has barely begun talking to regulators about approval. Aside from UAE Exchange in Abu Dhabi, which has been taken into care by the UAE central bank, Finablr has many overseers. It transfers cash all over the world.
Shareholders will no doubt get more details but they must be given time to consider the numbers and the nitty-gritty. They have had almost nothing to work on so far.
Finablr is sure to be a byword for playing by different rules. Shareholders may have learnt not to expect much, but they should have been able to hope for more.
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