{"id":851273,"date":"2026-02-18T08:58:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T06:58:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=851273"},"modified":"2026-02-18T08:58:21","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T06:58:21","slug":"south-african-payments-company-being-bought-for-r1-billion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/851273\/south-african-payments-company-being-bought-for-r1-billion\/","title":{"rendered":"South African payments company being bought for R1 billion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

JSE-listed Araxi has entered into agreements in which its subsidiary, African Resonance, will acquire an 80% stake in Pay At (Pay@) Holdings and its affiliate International Payment Holdings Limited (IHPL). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Araxi is the owner of African Resonance, Dashpay, and Synthesis and was formerly known as Capital Appreciation Limited until last year. Its focus lies in payment services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay@ was founded in 2007 and offers scalable payment services for B2B and B2C consumers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Araxi said that Pay@ has the largest network of independent payment processing channels in South Africa, with over 9,000 retailer locations, 150,000 mobile POS payment end-points and 15 digital payment platforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay@ services banks, telcos, voucher providers and fintechs. It operates in South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Eswatini and Lesotho.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Araxi now plans to acquire the majority stake in Pay@ for R1 billion, funded by R200 million in cash and R800 million in senior debt. R975 million will go to Pay@ and R25 million to IHPL. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Araxi said that the acquisition of the Pay@ Group will significantly strengthen its payment capabilities, enabling the group to deliver an expanded, more competitive offering to customers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It noted that 40% of Pay@ shares are currently owned by a US private equity firm, and that the acquisition ensures Pay@ will be fully South African-owned. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It noted that the profits will be reinvested locally, exposure to currency volatility will be reduced, and the shareholder base will be simplified. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rationale for the deal <\/h2>\n\n\n
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Araxi said that it focuses on specific differentiating attributes when evaluating potential acquisitions, which include business models or technologies already showing user acceptance on the adoption curve. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company also looks for companies whose customers are enterprise or institutional clients rather than individual consumers, and for businesses that are cash-generative and asset-lite. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In addition, the Araxi Group seeks innovative technologies with significant growth potential that can easily cross regional and continental borders,” it said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The extent to which the prospective acquisition presents meaningful and near-term synergies, with its existing operating units, is also a consideration in Araxi\u2019s decision.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It added that Pay@ has already achieved strong profitability, whilst maintaining the highest standards of client service, which is rare for fast-growing payments companies. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It noted that Pay@’s service offering is highly complementary to Araxi’s payment division, with almost no overlap. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay@ is an enterprise-facing offering and makes its platform offering available to retailers, banks, telcos, digital services providers, enterprises and SMEs, which is similar to Araxi. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The group added that Pay@ has tested and assembled a management team that is committed to remaining with the company post-acquisition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The management team also plans to work with Araxi to expand the platform further, both geographically and through new, diversified, and enhanced services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deal will require shareholder approval as a category 1 transaction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pay@ achieved revenue growth of 26.5% for the 12 months ended February 2025 to R271 million, with net profit rising by 34.2% to R91.3 million. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Financial Information of Pay@<\/th>12 months (28 February 2025\u00b9)<\/th>6 months (31 August 2025\u00b2)<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
Net asset value<\/strong><\/td>R679.9 million<\/td>R682.1 million<\/td><\/tr>
Revenue<\/strong><\/td>R271.2 million<\/td>R158.8 million<\/td><\/tr>
Growth vs prior comparable period<\/td>26.5%<\/td>24.2%<\/td><\/tr>
EBITDA<\/strong><\/td>R130.2 million<\/td>R72.4 million<\/td><\/tr>
Growth vs prior comparable period<\/td>30.3%<\/td>N\/A<\/td><\/tr>
Net Profit<\/strong><\/td>R91.3 million<\/td>R49.7 million<\/td><\/tr>
Growth vs prior comparable period<\/td>34.2%<\/td>N\/A<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Araxi is acquiring an 80% stake in Araxi in a deal worth R1 billion, as the payment companies look for further expansion. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":841026,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[24775,24774],"class_list":["post-851273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-araxi","tag-pay-at"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851273","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=851273"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":851303,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851273\/revisions\/851303"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/841026"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=851273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=851273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=851273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}