Mark Kleinman: Investor row is a Curve-ball for Lloyds deal
Mark Kleinman is Sky News’ City Editor and the man who gets the Square Mile talking in his weekly City PM column
Investor row is a Curve-ball for Lloyds deal
Talk about a messy divorce. For investors in Curve, the digital wallet provider founded a decade ago, its impending sale to Lloyds Banking Group, Britain’s biggest high street lender, should have been a cause for celebration.
It isn’t turning out that way. Granted, the payments platform created by Shachar Bialick, Curve’s founder and chief executive was once regarded one of the UK’s most promising fintechs; and its proposition remains compelling enough for Lloyds to have been persuaded of the merits of paying £120m to acquire it.
The hostility which has erupted, though, between the company and some of its biggest investors underlines the often-fraught journey through funding cycles experienced by fast-growing but loss-making companies in Britain.
In a statement last week, IDC Ventures, which has backed Curve since 2019 and owns 12 per cent of the company, said its efforts to engage with Bialick and the rest of a board chaired by Lord Fink, the City grandee, had been met with stony silence.
IDC, like a number of other shareholders, is furious that it will miss out on what it believes is an acceptable payout from the deal, with Bialick said to be in line for a multimillion pound windfall.
“We will act firmly and decisively to protect our commercial interests and expect the board, and Lloyds, to engage properly with our concerns before proceeding with any purchase and potentially exposing all stakeholders to prolonged and value-destructive litigation,” the firm said.
“IDC Ventures is committed to protecting the rights of shareholders and the highest standards of corporate governance, accountability, and transparency.
One source familiar with Curve’s position said it rejected IDC’s objections and accused the shareholder of putting the sale at risk through its instruction of lawyers at Quinn Emanuel. Bialick has already acknowledged to investors that the price is “disappointing”, but the company has refused to acknowledge – let alone respond in detail to – legitimate questions about it.
Curve’s shareholder showdown is set to take place next week. At a time when many of Britain’s most successful fintechs are bemoaning the health of London’s equity markets, an unseemly row involving a once-feted company is not a good look.
Shawbrook float is latest litmus test for London IPO market
When is a litmus test not a litmus test? Investors, bankers and journalists alike are prone to falling into the trap of labelling each putative London flotation a critical barometer of the recovery prospects for a faltering IPO pipeline.
That’s understandable given data from EY showing London listings in the first half of 2025 raised just £182.5m in aggregate.
The temptation to reach sweeping conclusions based on each corporate decision about floating on one side of the Atlantic or the other betrays the fragility of current sentiment towards the London market.
The latest example? Shawbrook Group, the mid-tier lender which has been itching to go public for years, is determined to squeeze into the City’s next IPO window at a valuation which satisfies BC Partners and Pollen Street Capital, its pair of private equity backers.
Improving investor sentiment towards banks, and a strategically sensible acquisition, suggests that the mooted £2bn valuation may not be very generous to the selling shareholders. Sources say Shawbrook’s private equity backers believe a £2.5bn price tag would be more realistic – although public market investors might beg to differ. That’s particularly the case ahead of a November Budget, the build-up to which is being punctuated by speculation about possible increases to bank taxes.
As I reported on Sky News last week, Shawbrook this month began holding pilot fishing meetings to gauge sentiment among institutional investors towards an IPO of the bank. Its recent acquisition of Thincats, the specialist SME lender, for about £180m, is expected to boost loan growth immediately, albeit modestly at first. A small free float priced in a discounted IPO, with the current shareholders retaining an interest in Shawbrook’s future growth, looks like the way to go.
Wise’s last hurrah may be best viewed behind the sofa
The end to life on the London Stock Exchange surely cannot come soon enough for Kristo Kaarmann, chief executive of payments group Wise. Fresh from seeing its ambition of switching its listing from London to New York approved by an overwhelming majority of shareholders, he faces its final AGM in the UK today.
It might not pass without controversy, either. Institutional Shareholder Services, the proxy adviser, has recommended that investors vote against Wise’s remuneration report on the basis that half of the long-term incentive awards granted to chief financial officer Emmanuel Thomassin vest after two years. In other words, they are not long-term at all.
“The vesting period is not in line with local market standards, which expect long-term incentive awards to vest no earlier than three years from the date of grant,” ISS said in its report.
Such a vote might seem academic, given Wise’s move, but it remains an unfortunate indication of slack governance that its board could authorise such a reward structure.
That’s especially true given that less than a year ago, Kaarmann was fined £350,000 by the Financial Conduct Authority over his personal tax affairs. Watching future governance developments at Wise from this side of the pond might still be done most wisely from behind the sofa.