Belgian operator Proximus has confirmed plans to bring its subsidiary TeleSign to the Nasdaq stock market, via a special purpose acquisition company. TeleSign is an international provider of digital identity and CPaaS software. With the help of the stock market listing and new capital, the company aims to grow from USD 391 million in sales in 2021 to USD 1.1 billion in 2026.
The North Atlantic Acquisition Corporation, a SPAC focused on global opportunities in the technology space, agreed to acquire the company for the reverse listing. The deal gives TeleSign an enterprise value of USD 1.3 million and up to USD 487 million infresh capital to grow the business. This includes up to USD 379.5 million from NAAC and a committed Private Investment in Public Equity (PIPE) of USD 107.5 million from a group of Belgian investors. The latter will include the federal government fund SFPI-FPIM and Finance Brussels, run by the Brussels regional government.
The divestment is part of Proximus's efforts to refocus on its domestic business and fibre expansion. It will continue to have majority control of TeleSign with a 66.5 percent stake. The group acquired Telesign in 2017 through its wholesale carrier services subsidiary BICS. Since February, Proximus has had sole ownership of TeleSign, and earlier this month confirmed it was looking at strategic options for the company.
TeleSign provides products for security, authentication, fraud detection, compliance and reputation scoring through its APIs. Its software platform with proprietary machine learning algorithms is used by eight of the 10 largest digital enterprises in the world. Joe Burton will remain CEO of the company, and NAAC CEO Gary Quin will join the board after the listing.
