TA Associates, the venture capital firm that financed Cardtronics, benefitted from the rally in financial services stocks with the sale of 7 million shares in the ATM operator for $84 million.
Shares in Cardtronics, which sunk to as low as 90 cents in January 2009, have rallied to $12 recently, prompting the venture firm to boost its secondary offering from 6 million shares. The rally and increased size of the offering boosted TA’s payout by $14 million. After the sale, TA holds 5.2 million Cardtronics shares, a stake of about 12% in the company.
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 Allpoint network.
TA helped fund the creation of Cardtronics in 2001, when the fledgling ATM operator bought several independent ATM companies. TA made an additional $75 million investment in 2005 to finance Cardtronics’ acquisition of 7-Eleven convenience stores’ 5,500 ATMs. The company went public in December 2007.
