(Bloomberg) — Wise Plc said revenue hit £559.9 million ($686 million) in its first set of full-year results as a listed company, up a third from the previous year.
But earnings missed estimates as the company’s investments hit margins, according to a statement Tuesday.
Adjusted EBITDA was £121.4 million in the year to March 2022, up 12% but below Bloomberg-compiled analyst expectations of £129.6 million.
The revenue figure was above the average analyst estimate of £556 million.
The firm “will continue to invest in our infrastructure” and “expand globally,” Kristo Kaarmann, Wise co-founder and chief executive officer, said in the statement.
Analysts at Citigroup Inc.
said the results were “mixed.”
Wise’s shares were down 5.8% at 9:32 a.m. in London, having earlier risen as much as 6% following the publication of the results.
The company said its volumes grew to £76 billion in the period, which was 40% more than in the year to March 2021.
It had 4.6 million active customers, an increase of 29%.
The money-transfer firm also said it expects revenue to grow by between 30% and 35% in the twelve months to March 2023, and in the medium term it expects to deliver revenue growth above 20%.
New Hires
The London-based fintech is hiring in Europe, Singapore and in its new Austin, Texas, office, with more than 400 roles open.
“Our teams will be hiring heavily in engineering and in product, but also we have operational teams around the world that will continue to grow,” Matt Briers, chief financial officer at Wise, said in a phone call.
Wise can send money to over 70 countries, but is only able to receive money from 45 countries, Briers said.
“So there’s many markets on the horizon that we’ll expand to.”
The company is one of a string of London-listed technology firms, whose shares have slipped since their listing, dampening investor confidence in London IPOs.
Wise made headlines since going public and losing about 60% of its value since then.
Kaarmann himself is also in the spotlight. Wise said Monday that the Financial Conduct Authority has commenced an investigation into the CEO almost a year after he was fined by HMRC for deliberately defaulting on his taxes.
“The board did a review into this.
We take it very seriously. We shared that with the FCA and now the FCA is running their own investigation,” Briers said. “We continue to support Kristo.”
He also said Wise — unlike some other startups — had no plans to raise capital.
“We don’t need to raise capital, we’re profitable,” Briers said.
“We weaned ourselves off this way of growing a business.”
(Updates with details throughout.)
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