Fireone, the operator of alternative payment system Firepay, has seen its value rise by almost £30m (US$54.6m) following its first week trading on the London Stock Exchange (LSE).
Fireone listed on the LSE’s Alternative Investment Market (AIM) on 2 June with a market capitalisation of £120.5m.
The listing raised £24.1m in cash for its parent company Optimal Group, which has retained 80% of the issued share capital.
No working capital was raised by the listing, which was done in part to boost the firm’s profile within Europe, as Fireone said it had enough cash in hand to run the business.
"Our admission to AIM, amongst other respected leisure and gaming companies, is the next logical step in FireOne's development," Mitch Garber, executive chairman of FireOne, said.
The firm currently supplies e-wallet services to 300 online gaming operators, and had a pre-tax profit of US$14.8m on turnover of US$43m for the year ending December 2004.
Its main competitor NETeller recorded an annual profit of US$45.8m for the year ended December 2004, and has a market cap of around US$1.2bn.
Fireone will be looking to mimic the success of NETeller, which was one of the success stories of the LSE this year.
NETeller, which had seen its share price rise as high as 777p, is currently trading at 540p a share from an initial listing price of 179.5p.
Gord Herman, chief executive of NETeller, sold US$19m worth of shares this week in order to “settle certain personal and matrimonial issues”.
source : egr magazine
