Silver Lake’s Mercury Payment files for IPO

The company told the U.S Securities and Exchange Commission in a preliminary prospectus that JPMorgan, Barclays and Morgan Stanley were underwriting the IPO, sister news service Reuters reported. The filing did not reveal how many shares the company planned to sell or their expected price.

The company intends to list its common stock on the Nasdaq under the symbol “MPS.” Reuters reported in November that Silver Lake has hired banks to lead a public offering of Mercury.

The buyout firm owns about 63 percent of Mercury, while founders Marc Katz and Jeffrey Katz and director Larry Stone own the rest. Durango, Colorado-based Mercury said net proceeds from the offering would be used to purchase holdings units from the owners.

Founded in 2001, Mercury grew to become one of the five largest non-bank payment processors in the United States by the number of transactions. The company targets small and medium-sized merchants, such as restaurants and stores, with cheaper credit card payment services.

Mercury’s net profit fell about 8 percent to $42.7 million in 2013 while revenue rose about 17 percent to $237.3 million.

Another payment start-up, Square Inc, headed by Twitter Inc’s Jack Dorsey, is also said to be in talks with banks for a public offering in 2014.

The amount of money a company says it plans to raise in its first IPO filings is used to calculate registration fees. The final size of the IPO could be different.

Avik Das is a correspondent for Reuters in Bangalore.