Currencies Direct in a £140 million equity deal with Blackstone.

Currencies Direct, a London, UK-based provider of digital foreign exchange and international payment services to private clients and small and medium sized enterprises, announced getting into an equity deal with Blackstone closed at £140 million ($186M).

The money was raised to accomodate Blackstone in the company's captable, in a transaction that included contributions from existing shareholders Palamon Capital and Corsair Capital as well as from Currencies Direct’s management team, led by Keith Hatton.

Palamon and Corsair will retain their majority co-controlling stake in the company.

Currencies Direct, founded in 1995 by Mayank Patel, is one of the largest digital FX and international payment platforms globally with £105 million in revenues and £43 million of EBITDA for the last 12 months ending January 2022. The company says it focuses on high-value use cases and segments of the FX market, as well as SMEs, as it combines a full-stack, fully-digital product offering for both consumers and businesses.

Currencies Direct was acquired by Palamon and Corsair in 2015, when it had an EBITDA of £13 million.