NetSpend Corp. plans to issue up to $200 million of stock in an initial public offering, the Austin prepaid card company disclosed Thursday in a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
It is the second prepaid card company to announce plans this year to go public. Existing investors in Monrovia, Calif. competitor Green Dot Corp. are planning to sell up to 3.85 million shares of their stock at an expected range of $32 to $35 in the company's IPO this month.
NetSpend said it may use some of the proceeds of its IPO to pay down debt and for working capital. The company, which had 2.1 million active cards as of March 31, had $59.1 million of outstanding debt under a term loan, according to the S-1 filing.
The company sells its cards through more than 450 retailers at more than 38,000 locations. It reported sales of $69.5 million for the quarter ended March 31, up 27% from a year earlier. Its net income also rose 29% in the same period to $4.6 million.
Prepaid industry analysts have said more card providers would likely tap the public markets to fund operations and the acquisition of new technology as demand for the product, geared toward underbanked consumers, grows.
NetSpend's underwriters are Goldman, Sachs & Co., Bank of America Merrill Lynch, William Blair & Company LLC, Wells Fargo Securities LLC, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Inc. and Duncan-Williams Inc.
Its filing did not include an expected price range for shares to be sold in the IPO.
NetSpend also this week announced it hired former Intuit Inc. executive Chuck Harris as president. At Intuit, Harris was general manager of the business software company's Payment Solutions division.
