Bahrain's Investcorp puts Moneybookers up for sale

MONEY MATTERS: Investcorp, listed in Bahrain and London, has hired JPMorgan to run the sale.

Bahrain-based investment bank Investcorp has put Moneybookers, the fast-growing European online payment firm, up for sale in a deal that could be worth more than 400 million euros ($506 million).

News of the auction came as Moneybookers unveiled a near doubling in revenue for 2008 and its two heads forecast a similar performance this year, despite economic gloom.

Co-CEOs Nikolai Riesenkampff and Martin Ott told Reuters the firm was handling more transactions, as thrifty consumers sought online bargains and its anti-fraud technology allowed it to take market share from rivals.

Based in London, Moneybookers competes with online auctioneer eBay's Paypal service. It has recently been added as an alternative payment option on eBay.

It also vies with money transfer companies including Western Union, for "peer-to-peer" business such as helping expatriates send money home.

Moneybookers Co-CEO Riesenkampff said Investcorp appointed JPMorgan to auction the business after getting approaches "from big internet companies, from large U.S. payment processers, and from very big financial sponsors".

Moneybookers said revenue rose 88 percent in 2008 to 34.5 million euros. "Maybe we're not going to exactly double this year but we'll come close to it, definitely," Riesenkampff said in a telephone interview.

Co-CEO Ott said earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA), which hit 18.7 million euros in 2008, would be "definitely north of 30 million" in 2009.

"It wouldn't be out of this world to see something north of 400 million (euros)," as the sale value, Ott added.

Investcorp , listed in Bahrain and London, bought a 51 percent stake in Moneybookers in March 2007, in a deal that valued the company at 105 million euros.

Other shareholders in the company, which is debt-free, are managers and so-called "business angels", who together hold 12 percent, and venture capitalist Gatcombe Park Ventures, according to the CEOs.

In February, Investcorp said it planned to raise at least $250 million in capital after posting a net loss of $511 million for the six months to Dec. 31 as the global economic turmoil hit its portfolio companies. (Reuters)

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