By Nathan Ferguson
Jack Dorsey’s Square has recently decided to acquire Afterpay, a financial technology company based in Australia, for a whopping $29 billion. After the acquisition has been completed, Square consumers shall be allowed to utilize Cash App’s features similar to that of regular Bitcoin (BTC) purchases.
Square itself is one of the world’s top platforms when it comes to mobile payments, and the aforementioned multi-billion purchase had occurred a ‘Scheme of Arrangement’ that had also been approved by the court.
Square continues to expand
The company led by Jack Dorsey shall be acquiring each and every one of Afterpay’s issued shares, with the aforementioned price of $29 billion. As such, it is expected that the transaction shall be finalized at the beginning of next year and is to be paid entirely in stocks, provided that specific closing conditions can be adequately satisfied first.
According to the terms of the purchase, the Afterpay shareholders shall be receiving a conversion rate (fixed) of 0.375 shares. The shares themselves will be of Square’s common stock (Class A) and will be given for each Afterpay ordinary share that is being held as per the official record date. Furthermore, the report had indicated that Square could pay a maximum of 1% of the overall purchase amount in cash.
Moreover, Square has plans of building a new secondary listing on ASX (Australian Securities Exchange) in an attempt to allow the Afterpay shareholders to be able to trade Square’s shares through CDIs via the stock exchange. When the transaction is finally completed, Afterpay’s executives, which also include co-CEOs along with co-founders, shall be assisting Square in an effort to improve Afterpay’s various businesses.
Cash App
Afterpay can best be described as a BNPL (buy now and pay later) platform which is operational in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. When the acquisition of Afterpay by Square is completed next year, Jack Dorsey’s company shall be integrating it into its respective Cash App and Seller platforms.
Through this, all merchants will be able to provide BNPL to countless customers upon checkout, which will result in Afterpay’s users being allowed to pay in installments. This can be done directly via Cash App. Also, the integration will allow more than 7 million customers who all use Afterpay to receive the benefits from Cash App’s numerous features, including but not limited to Bitcoin, stock purchases, and money transfer.