At a time when mergers and acquisitions have become the saving grace of several crypto businesses, one particular deal has unfortunately collapsed. eToro, the stocks and crypto trading platform is not being acquired by the special purpose acquisition company called FinTech V. Certain conditions, that were important for the completion of this deal, failed to close causing the deal to fall apart. The deadline for these conditions to be met was June 30.
“We are disappointed that the transaction has been rendered impracticable due to circumstances outside of either party’s control,” said Betsy Cohen, Chairman of FinTech V while commenting on the matter.
The proposed merger was initially announced in March 2021. Had it been completed; the agreement would have allowed eToro to go public bringing the estimated equity value of the combined entities at around $10.4 billion (roughly Rs. 82,701 crore).
Now that the deal is off, neither party will be required to pay the other a termination fee.
“While this may not be the outcome that we hoped for when we started this process, eToro’s underlying business remains healthy, our balance sheet is strong and will continue to balance future growth with profitability. We ended Q2 2022 with approximately 2.7 million funded accounts, an increase of over 12 percent versus the end of 2021,” Yoni Assia, Co-founder and CEO of eToro noted.
eToro also recently announced the addition of a popular blockchain-based metaverse platform The Sandbox to its investment platform, enabling its customers to invest in a metaverse.
Back In January, eToro announced the launch of its metaverse-themed smart portfolio dubbed MetaverseLife, aimed at offering investors long-term exposures to stocks, crypto-assets, and key projects within the metaverse industry.
As per a report by PWC, mergers and acquisition activity in the crypto sector swelled in 2021 with the global value of such transactions totalling more than $55 billion (roughly Rs. 4,35,893 crore), versus $1.1 billion (roughly Rs. 8,717 crore) in 2020.