Shift4 Payments Inc. is scheduled to have its first quarterly earnings call as a publicly held company on Thursday. Ahead of that call, company founder and chief executive Jared Isaacman is expressing satisfaction with the merchant acquirer’s June 4 initial public offering.
The oversubscribed IPO was priced at $23 per share, above its earlier targets, and raised $497 million in net proceeds, according to Isaacman. That enabled Allentown, Pa.-based Shift4 to pay down more than $285 million in debt “and put north of $200 million on the balance sheet,” Isaacman tells Digital Transactions magazine for an upcoming story about payment-industry IPOs.
And while the acquiring industry isn’t noted for flashy advertising, Square Inc. and Shift4 have stood out, says Jared Drieling, senior director of consulting and market intelligence at Omaha, Neb.-based payments consultancy The Strawhecker Group. Shift4 has advertised on the reality TV show Bar Rescue, and in July it was designated the “Official Credit Card Processing Company of the Las Vegas Raiders” and the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium, where all payment transactions will be processed on Shift4 technology. “They’ve done a tremendous job around marketing,” says Drieling.