“I know as much about fintech as I did about gin or mobile a few years ago.”
Canadian payment technology company Nuvei Corp. (NVEI.TO) has a new celebrity investor.
Nuvei announced on Monday in a press release that actor and investor Ryan Reynolds has invested in the company, although it did not disclose any further details about the size and scope of the investment. The payments firm also launched an advertising campaign that features Reynolds promoting Nuvei alongside chief executive and chairman Phil Fayer.
Reynolds’ investment comes a month after Mint Mobile, the budget wireless service provider he partly owned, was was sold to T-Mobile for US$1.35 billion. Reynolds’ portfolio also includes investments in Welsh soccer club Wrexham AFC and American Aviation Gin, which was purchased by Diageo in 2020 for US$610 million.
This I assure you… @nuvei will never ever build a rocket. pic.twitter.com/pyVdLSraW8
— Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) April 17, 2023
“I know about as much about fintech as I did about gin or mobile a few years ago,” Reynolds said in a statement released by Nuvei.
“But Nuvei is impressive. The leadership team is exceedingly intelligent and hard-working and it’s about time a Canadian company got the type of attention American tech companies do.”
Reynolds said in an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box program that the investment has been two years in the making and that “my job is storytelling.”
“America gets a lot of credit for innovation and I think there’s something quite funny and interesting and a fun story to tell about Canada flexing a little bit,” he said on CNBC. “This is already a multi-billion dollar global company with an amazing story to tell.”
Shares of Nuvei increased as much as 1.6 per cent on Monday, but were trading flat on the Toronto Stock Exchange as of 11:15 a.m. ET.
Nuvei is a global payments technology company that has been acquiring other platforms as part of its growth strategy. In February the company completed its $1.3 billion acquisition of Paya, a U.S. company that provides payment solutions for healthcare, government and business-to-business markets.
Source: ca.finance.yahoo.com
