PEXA makes ASX debut after outage

PEXA listed on the ASX on Thursday (1 July), after raising $1.1 billion through its initial public offering at a price of $17.13 per share. At listing, PEXA's market cap was $3.3 billion.

On Friday afternoon, PEXA’s share price sat at $17.66, a slim profit for IPO investors, with the price 53 cents higher than at listing.

PEXA’s parent company, Link Administration Holdings, retained 42.8 per cent of PEXA’s shares, while co-owner CBA held 23.9 per cent.

The conveyancing platform reported the new shareholders will support it through its next phase of growth.

PEXA chair Mark Joiner commented the listing markets an “important milestone”.

However, the company experienced wobbles on the eve of its IPO, with its platform having an outage on Wednesday afternoon for an hour and 45 minutes.

The technical difficulties may have prevented banks, conveyancers, and other parties from settling transactions for almost two hours.

PEXA said it was “deeply disappointed” in a status update, apologising to any affected homebuyers and sellers.

But PEXA’s transaction volumes through its exchange in the fourth quarter of the 2021 financial year, (960,000 processed), were around 48 per cent above the prior corresponding period in FY20.

Link confirmed PEXA would be listing on the ASX in June, after it turned down a $1.95-billion acquisition offer from a consortium of private equity firms.

The company brought in new directors to its board ahead of the listing, including SCA Property group and EML Payments director Kirstin Ferguson and Challenger and PayPal director Melanie Willis.

[Related: Qld races ahead in property settlements: PEXA]