TA Associates Inc., the venture capital firm that financed Cardtronics Inc., expects to benefit from the rally in financial services stocks this month by increasing its planned secondary offering in the automated teller machine operator.
Cardtronics, of Houston, said last week that TA Associates would sell 7 million of its shares in the company. After the sale, the Boston firm would hold 5.2 million Cardtronics shares, about 12% of the company.
Shares in Cardtronics, which fell as low as 90 cents in January 2009, have rallied to surpass $12 recently, prompting the venture firm to boost its planned offering from 6 million shares.
Cardtronics, which operates 25,000 ATMs in the U.S., is a critical electronic switch for credit unions — connecting to almost every credit union in the country through Co-op Financial Services, Credit Union 24, Financial Service Cooperative and Cardtronics' Allpoint network.
TA helped fund the creation of Cardtronics in 2001, when Cardtronics bought several independent ATM companies. It made an additional $75 million investment in 2005 to finance Cardtronics' acquisition of 7-Eleven Inc.'s network of 5,500 convenience store ATMs. Cardtronics went public in December 2007.
