On the evening of September 30, Lakala Payment Co.,Ltd. (ASX: 300773) announced that it was planning to acquire a controlling stake in Guangzhou Gaofu Information Technology Co., Ltd., whose flagship brand is Skyee, through a combination of share issuance and cash payment. Trading in the company's shares was suspended from the market open on October 8, with a transaction plan expected to be disclosed within no more than 10 trading days and a resumption of trading and termination of the planning matter by October 22 at the latest.
Before the news was made public, the company's share price had already shown notable abnormal movement, closing at the daily limit of 14.38 yuan the day before the suspension, giving it a market value of approximately 15.6 billion yuan. By moving from a minority stake to a controlling position, Lakala Payment intends to shore up its cross-border payment shortcomings and build a second growth curve. However, an examination of the company's first-half operating data shows that the risk profile of this deal is far from unclear.
Lakala Payment's results for the first half of 2026 appeared quite impressive on the surface. The company generated operating revenue of 3.257 billion yuan, up 22.86% year on year, while net profit attributable to shareholders reached 669 million yuan, up 191.67% year on year. Yet once the profit structure is broken down, the picture is entirely different. In the first half, the company's investment income reached as much as 610 million yuan, accounting for 72.69% of total profit. Of that, in January 2026 the company fully liquidated its remaining shares in BlueFocus, with a total transaction value of 1.707 billion yuan, recognizing investment income of 551 million yuan and adding 463 million yuan in after-tax profit, equal to 69.16% of first-half net profit attributable to shareholders. The company explicitly noted in its financial report that this investment income is "not sustainable." After excluding non-recurring items such as investment income, Lakala Payment's first-half net profit attributable to shareholders after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was only 219 million yuan.
Even more alarming is the sharp divergence between quarters: first-quarter net profit attributable to shareholders was as high as 595 million yuan, while second-quarter profit was only 74 million yuan, down 87% quarter on quarter and more than 40% year on year. Once the one-off equity disposal gain in the first quarter receded, the true level of the main business's profitability in the second quarter was fully exposed.
What is more concerning than the profit structure is the company's cash flow position. In the first half of 2026, Lakala Payment's net cash flow from operating activities was -103 million yuan, compared with positive 141 million yuan in the same period a year earlier, a sharp decline of 173.26% year on year. The company explained in its financial report that this was mainly "due to an increase in taxes paid and collection and payment agency transactions compared with the previous period." However, this explanation can hardly fully dispel market doubts. Lakala Payment's net cash flow from operating activities had already reached -84.3873 million yuan in the first quarter of 2026, marking two consecutive quarters of net outflow. The continued divergence between net profit and operating cash flow means that the growth in the company's book profit has not translated into actual cash recovery, and the main business's ability to generate cash internally is coming under pressure. Combined with the full-year 2025 trend of a 45.58% year-on-year decline in net profit after deducting non-recurring gains and losses and a 32.53% year-on-year drop in operating cash flow, signs of weak growth in Lakala Payment's main business are not a recent development.
Against the backdrop of its own operating cash flow turning from positive to negative, Lakala Payment has chosen to acquire Skyee through a combination of share issuance and cash payment. If the transaction consideration is mainly paid in cash, it will further consume the company's already tightening liquidity.
Skyee was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Guangzhou. It is the first euro collection platform in China. The company has built a global local payment settlement business covering more than 100 countries, has served more than 240,000 enterprise users cumulatively, and has branches in the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, Singapore and other places. Its business scope covers cross-border e-commerce collection, foreign trade collection, corporate foreign exchange transaction management and global supplier payments.
In 2021, Lakala Payment strategically invested in Gaofu Information through its wholly owned subsidiary Hainan Yunshang Internet Technology Co., Ltd., becoming the second-largest shareholder with a 31.1538% stake. After this transaction is completed, Lakala Payment will shift from a minority shareholder to a controlling shareholder.
From a synergy perspective, Lakala Payment's cross-border payment transaction scale in the first half was 54.364 billion yuan, up 46.38% year on year. Skyee's accumulated expertise in euro collection and its global local settlement network could, in theory, complement Lakala Payment's domestic merchant base and acquiring network. However, cross-border payment business involves licenses in multiple countries, foreign exchange management and anti-money laundering compliance, and the complexity of integration is far higher than that of domestic acquiring business. Whether Lakala Payment can effectively manage this leap still needs time to be tested.
At the same time, the regulatory environment in the cross-border payment sector is tightening. Starting from January 1, 2026, for cross-border remittance business, remittances of more than 5,000 yuan or the foreign currency equivalent of 1,000 U.S. dollars per transaction must verify the identity of the remitter. The FATF's new "travel rule" also requires that all cross-border payment transactions exceeding 1,000 U.S. dollars include remitter and beneficiary information, with jurisdictions expected to complete implementation preparations by the end of 2030. The trend toward more refined and penetrating anti-money laundering regulation is clear, and compliance costs for payment companies will continue to rise.
The procedural uncertainty of the transaction itself is also prominent. The announcement made clear that the transaction is still in the planning stage, and the final transaction plan, pricing and asset scope all remain subject to a formal agreement, with uncertainty over whether approval can be obtained and when it will ultimately be granted. If the restructuring plan is not disclosed before October 22, the company's shares will resume trading and the planning of this matter will be terminated. In addition, the abnormal fluctuation in the share price before the suspension has also raised market attention to insider information management. Whether the company has conducted an internal review of insider information in connection with this restructuring will be an issue for subsequent regulatory scrutiny.
Comments