CEO of Swedish payments firm Klarna said he is wary of the short-term focus of public markets and the tendency of some activist hedge funds to dictate corporate direction while lacking deep industry knowledge, but told Reuters that his firm plans to go public eventually.
com markets funds payments-firm-clearnas-jane sep-losses grow-soured credits -- 2021 -- 11 -- 26, which allows shoppers to buy online through its merchant partners and settle their dues in installments, became Europe's most valuable startup in March and was valued at $46 billion at: www.reuters. After a funding round in June, com business payments-firm clearnas-valuation rises - 46 billion-after-raising -- 2021 - 06 - 10 - higher than several of the region's major banks.
Founded in 2005, the company is one of the largest players in the global buy now sector, with more than 90 million active users in 17 countries and includes Visa Inc, private equity firm Permira and the venture firm Sequoia Capital among its backers.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO, said in an interview on Wednesday that the company's success is inevitable and that it will eventually become a public entity.
I am hoping for Klarna that there will be a strong reputation for the business by the time we go public, as you have been able to see with somebody like Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk or Amazon.com Inc founder Jeff Bezos, where it's almost like nobody reads the quarterly reports, he said.
He said he was concerned about the involvement of hedge funds, which may provide value but also lack deep understanding of a company's industry and opportunities, leading to very foolish decisions. He said we are going to have to be public one day, with that worry still in my stomach. Jack Dorsey, the longtime CEO of Twitter Inc, relinquished his post at www.reuters. Business media-telecom twitter-ceo jack-dorsey expected step down-cnbc-20021 -- 11 -- 29 earlier this week, in 2020 faced calls from Elliott Management Corp to step down after the hedge fund argued that he was paying too little attention to Twitter while also running Square Inc.
Siemiatkowski said that the BNPL industry needs to be regulated, provided policies are devised to promote and not hurt market competitiveness.
With the advent of online payment platforms, demand for financial tech companies has gone up, with digital payments behemoths like PayPal Holdings Inc and Square expanding into the BNPL sector through acquisitions.
Regulation of BNPL fintech services is a priority for British lawmakers as they focus on what they see as inappropriate marketing of credit, and regulators focus on what they see as inappropriate marketing of credit.
If you implement such rules, the downside is that the market is less competitive, which means in the end the consumer is losing out, said Siemiatkowski.