Shift4 Looks to Raise Up to $315 Million Through Its IPO

Shift4 Payments Inc.’s pending initial public offering took a step forward Monday when the merchant processor filed an amended prospectus stating it plans to sell 15 million shares of common stock at a range of $19 to $21 per share.

At the maximum price, the sale would yield $315 million before underwriting expenses. The shares will trade under the ticker symbol “FOUR” on the New York Stock Exchange.

Common shareholders, however, will have only 3.5% of the voting power in Allentown, Pa.-based Shift4, which filed its first public prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission in mid-May. According to the amended prospectus, the firm will be structured as a holding company with three classes of stock. Private-equity firm Searchlight Capital Partners L.P., which has offices in New York, London, and Toronto, and company founder and chief executive Jared Isaacman will own the Class B and Class C shares. Those two classes each will have 10 votes per share compared with one vote per share for Class A, collectively giving Searchlight and Isaacman 96.5% of the voting power of the common stock.

Rook Holdings Inc., a company wholly owned by Isaacman, will buy up to $100 million in Class C stock in a private placement concurrent with the IPO, according to the filing.

A Shift4 executive did not respond to a Digital Transactions News inquiry about when the IPO might be held or if the company has yet embarked on a so-called road show in which underwriters travel around the country trying to sell the offering to prospective investors. Companies typically go into a quiet period before IPOs, and proposed share prices and amounts raised often change in depending on market conditions.

Shift4 served 66,000 merchants that generated $6 billion in payment volume in the three months ending March 31, according to the prospectus.

The lead underwriters are Citigroup Inc., Credit Suisse, and Goldman Sachs & Co.