OPay priced its IPO, but isn't going public
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Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Lots of companies successfully price IPOs. Lots of other companies try to price IPOs, but cancel the process when it goes wobbly.
- OPay appears to be the only company to have successfully priced its IPO, and then thrown in the towel. Just hours before its shares were set to begin trading.
Catch up quick: OPay, an Africa-focused payments company founded by Norway's Opera, last Friday announced that it had raised $304 million in its IPO.
- It hit the bottom of its projected $19 to $21 per share range, which would have given it around a $4 billion market cap.
- Axios received a PR email saying that OPay would become "the first Nigerian fintech company to be listed in the U.S. ... Backed by prominent global investors including SoftBank, OPay is the #1 finance app in Africa & Middle East and serves over 50 million users across Nigeria, Egypt, Pakistan, and Indonesia."
Driving the news: OPay shares never made it to the Big Board. And it doesn't appear that they are going to anytime soon.
- The company said that it decided not to complete the IPO, blaming a "recent regulatory inquiry relating to a jurisdiction immaterial to the company's business operations."
- No additional information was disclosed, except that OPay expressed confidence that the inquiry would be wrapped up soon and that it has no impact on operations.
Zoom in: There are way more questions right now than answers.
- For example, when was the company made aware of the inquiry? What about its underwriters, led by Citi?
- If the jurisdiction is immaterial, why kill the entire offering? Couldn't a temporary delay have sufficed?
- There were indications that OPay stock was set to open trading at below $17 per share. Could it have gotten cold feet and used this regulatory issue as a smokescreen?
Shhhh: Neither the company's outside PR firm nor Citi are responding to requests for additional information.
By the numbers: The Lagos-based company reports $91 million of net income on $467 million in revenue for the first half of 2026, and had raised over $270 million from firms like SoftBank, IDG Capital, HSG, GSR Ventures, and Source Code Capital.
The bottom line: Perhaps this is a momentary tempest in a teapot, stirred by skittish lawyers who expect OPay to revive the offering in short order. But for an IPO market that could really use some wins, this is an unprecedented loss.
