OPay Pulls $304 Million US IPO After Chinese Regulatory Inquiry

OPay Ltd. halted its planned New York Stock Exchange listing after inquiries by a Chinese regulator, according to people familiar with the matter cited by Bloomberg, derailing a $304 million offering and delaying an opportunity for investors including SoftBank to realize returns.

Bloomberg reported that the Nigeria-focused payments company pulled the deal just hours after setting the price. OPay had priced its initial public offering at $19 per share — the bottom of its marketed $19-to-$21 range — valuing the business at approximately $4 billion, according to BusinessDay. It planned to raise the funds through the sale of 16 million American depositary shares and was scheduled to debut under the ticker OPAY. Bloomberg described the offering at about $300 million.

The collapse stands out because OPay's ties to China are minimal on paper. The company generates the overwhelming majority of its business in Nigeria and has no material operations, headquarters or revenue in mainland China, BusinessDay reported. Its exposure to the country runs largely through its founder, Chinese businessman Yahui Zhou, who previously founded Beijing Kunlun Tech and has business links to Opera.

In regulatory disclosures, OPay described the inquiry as involving a foreign jurisdiction it considered immaterial to its core operations, according to BusinessDay. It did not explicitly identify China or disclose the specific concerns raised, but maintained that the matter should not be interpreted as reflecting negatively on its financial condition, business performance or regulatory standing in its operating markets. The company said it was confident the issue would be resolved satisfactorily in the near term, and that its operations and customer services in Nigeria and other markets remained unaffected.

The timing, however, exposed the vulnerability of international fundraising plans to regulatory developments outside a company's principal markets. OPay and its underwriters — Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, Standard Bank and China International Capital Corp. — mutually agreed to terminate the underwriting agreement, BusinessDay said. The move also disrupted a related private placement involving Standard Bank interests that was potentially worth up to $200 million.

For SoftBank, the aborted listing is a setback in converting OPay's growth into publicly traded investment value. The Japanese investment group backed the fintech as part of its broader exposure to high-growth technology businesses, with OPay emerging as one of Africa's most prominent digital finance platforms. OPay raised $400 million in 2021 at a $2 billion valuation and has since expanded into payments, transfers, savings and lending, serving tens of millions of monthly active users in Nigeria. The proposed IPO would have doubled its previous valuation and provided fresh capital for expansion while creating a public-market benchmark for investors to assess their holdings.

The episode also underscores a growing complication for African technology companies seeking international capital: corporate exposure to regulatory jurisdictions can extend beyond where they generate revenue or operate. China has tightened oversight of overseas listings, data security and businesses connected to Chinese founders and investors, BusinessDay noted. OPay's prospectus had addressed the question of Chinese regulatory approvals, with advisers concluding that none were required because the company lacked mainland Chinese operating assets and revenue. The late-stage inquiry overturned those expectations, raising questions about how international investors and underwriters assess regulatory exposure when companies have cross-border ownership or founder connections.

For other African fintechs with Chinese founders or historical investor relationships, the fallout could mean more extensive regulatory scrutiny and due diligence before accessing US capital markets, potentially increasing listing costs and uncertainty, BusinessDay reported. A separate BusinessDay report said the episode also raises hard questions about the dual-listing playbook for companies such as OPay.