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FIFTEEN YEARS AFTER founding his online-payments company Realex Payments, Irish entrepreneur Colm Lyon is reaping the rewards.
Yesterday it was announced that New York-listed Global Payments had bought the Dublin-based firm in a deal worth €115 million – most of which will flow to the chief executive.
As of the end of last year, Lyon and his wife Niamh owned nearly 75% of the company’s shares, putting the pair in line for a potential €85-million plus return.
Realex, which employs 170 people across its offices in Dublin, London and Paris, will now be run under the wing of the Atlanta-headquartered company – which is worth $6.1 billion on the stock market and has 4,200 staff worldwide.
It will continue trading under the Realex name, although Lyon will stand down from his post as company chief executive as part of the deal.
In a blog post, he paid tribute to those who kept the faith in the early days of the company and helped get the fledgling firm off the ground:
For many on the Realex Payments journey, there will be some looking back to the early days, to the time when we couldn’t raise money, when family, friends and associates stepped in and provided us with the support we needed to get a basic service up and running. Asking for help was one of the best steps we took.”
‘Great news for Ireland’
According to the company’s last annual accounts, it turned over some €18.1 million and delivered an operating profit of €2.1 million for the year to April 2014.
That was a 27% increase in revenue on the previous year and a 67% rise in profits, with the vast bulk of the money coming from its trade in the UK and Ireland.
The company provides payment-processing services for companies selling online, including Virgin Atlantic, Paddy Power and the Automobile Association.
In a statement yesterday, Lyon said the announcement was “great news for our customers, for our employees and for Ireland”.
For Realex Payments’ existing 12,500 merchants, this deal means they can avail of Global Payments unmatched international presence, entering new markets and driving their global ecommerce business like never before,” he said.
“And for Realex Payments’ staff, the diversity of opportunity that comes with the deal is enormous.”
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Fair play to the man. Wonderful achievement.
Cool
Very honourable thing to do.. Reward those who helped build the business to what it is. I wish him well in the future
Great achievement and not a suit in sight!
Wow. What a wonderful achievement for him and his wife. Hopefully he’ll reinvest some of his new fortune in another venture in Ireland.
fair play to them good to see they’ve done so well they must be very relaxed with all the money ..
Brilliant news, used Realex before and the support team are excellent. Well deserved achievement.
Great attribute of an individual at this point to thank those that supported him in the early days. We now know his friends had better judgement than the banks.
Fantastic news. Couldn’t have happened to a better company. The realex lads are brilliant in every sense of the word.
Fairly typical of the Irish tech industry, they sell out too early, as a result ye’ll never see a multi-billion valued Irish tech company (well unless ye regard Stripe as been Irish due to nationality of it’s founders)
It’s part of the national psyche. We long for acceptance from the bigger kids and will always sell out given the change. To be fair you can’t really blame them. Take millions and retire or work your balls off and die passing the company on to your heirs. Americans prefer the latter which is why they’re so successful in business. Are they successful in life though…
I’d sell out for 115 million and live in a mansion in Long Island or Surrey
Surry?????
There’s nothing wrong with what Paul has said above, he’s right to an extent. Ireland is definitely ahead of the curve in terms of tech, its something that should be nurtured more and developed more. Our banking sector is a farce so unless startups can get VC support they are really limited in terms of investment for developing a product.
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He has €100,000 for each of those € symbols
Bill gates has €63,116,000
Have you ever heard the saying “If you don’t have anything nice to say don’t say anything at all!!!”
The government should tax him at a rate of 68% on the 85 million and put that revenue into increasing social welfare payments …. Vote for me now
That’s a horrible smile
That’s not very nice Darragh.
I think it’s pretty adorable to be honest
have your say