MasterCard joins £109m Monitise share-placing

MasterCard joins £109m Monitise share-placing

Monitise has raised around £109 million in a share-placing which sees MasterCard take a minority stake in the mobile money firm.

MasterCard was joined by institutional investors in the over-subscribed placing of more than 160 million new ordinary shares at 68 pence a piece. Visa is already an investor in Monitise.

The two firms have also entered into a commercial agreement, with Ed McLaughlin, chief emerging payments officer, MasterCard, saying: "Our partnership with Monitise builds upon a shared commitment to improve the mobile shopping experience today and into the future."

The new funds will be used to help Monitise overhaul its business model, ditching big upfront license fees in favour of a subscription-based system designed to cut costs for banks and boost its own long-term annuities. This, the firm hopes, will help it rapidly build its base of registered users from around 28 million to 200 million over the next four years.

Alastair Lukies, CEO, Monitise, says: "At a pivotal time in the Monitise journey, the Group is now embarking on a new chapter in Mobile Money innovation as it accelerates its move to a subscription-based business model. By adopting this approach, the Group is looking to ensure that its secure platform technology is accessible to the widest possible number of people."

However, Monitise admits that the switch to a subscription model is likely to see a near-term slowdown in revenue growth. It has therefore cut its expected full year growth guidance from 50% to 40% and warned of higher losses in the second half of 2014. The firm now expects to be Ebitda profitable in 2016, a year later than the current sell-side analyst consensus.

Shares in Monitise were up 2.88 pence, or 4.18%, to 71.62 pence, in morning trading.

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