Dive Brief:
- Billtrust, which provides accounting and payments software to businesses, said Tuesday in a press release that it has appointed Grant Halloran as CEO. The release didn’t mention his predecessor, Sunil Rajasekar, who was in the role through August, according to his LinkedIn profile. A Billtrust spokesperson declined to comment on Rajasekar’s exit.
- In a separate development, Diallo Gordon will become CEO of gaming payments company Pavilion Payments next month, taking over from Dan Connors, who will remain at the company as executive chairman, according to a post on LinkedIn. The news was confirmed by a spokesperson for the company, who said Gordon will take the post “officially” in January.
- In announcing the Pavilion Payments leadership change, Connors praised Gordon’s appointment, noting his “decades of experience in the gaming payments space.”
Dive Insight:
While the two companies aren’t related, and operate in different areas of the payments world, they have one thing in common: They’re both owned by private equity firms.
Such investment firms invest in companies, using their partners’ money and that of other investors, with a plan to expand the businesses, and sell them within about three to eight years so they can provide returns to their investors.
Lawrenceville, New Jersey-based Billtrust, which was founded in 2001, automates business-to-business commerce by providing cloud-based digital payments, credit monitoring, online ordering, invoicing and other services.
Billtrust’s parent company, BTRS Holdings, agreed to be acquired in September 2022 by the Swedish private equity firm EQT for $1.7 billion, and it’s still listed as part of that investment firm’s portfolio holdings.
Halloran is becoming Billtrust’s CEO just months after having stepped down from the CEO post at another company, Planful, after leading that financial management software business for six years, according to an October press release.
His predecessor, Rajasekar, was hired as CEO of Billtrust three years ago in December 2022, just after BTRS agreed to be sold to EQT.
Rajasekar succeeded Billtrust founder Flint Lane, who had praised Rajasekar, a former general manager for e-commerce titan eBay, saying he would take the company through the “next stage of growth and maturation.”
Billtrust had been planning to expand by way of acquisitions, but the company doesn’t appear to have made any newsworthy acquisitions in the past two years, based on a survey of press releases on PR Newswire.
Back in January 2023, Rajasekar said Billtrust’s goal was to double annual revenue to $500 million, from $200 million, although he declined to say when the company planned to accomplish the objective.
Las Vegas-based Pavilion Payments has spearheaded growth too, with help from a private equity owner that has carved out a niche in payments. In 2023, payments processor Global Payments, which previously owned the gaming business, agreed to sell it to private equity firm Parthenon Capital Partners for $415 million.
CEO Christopher Justice, who had been leading the gaming business at Global Payments since 2017, stayed on when that transaction happened, but was replaced last year by Connors.
Pavilion provides payments hardware, software and services – such as credit and debit card cash advance, cashless advance, online gaming solutions, traditional and digital check processing – to facilitate commerce on the casino floor, allowing consumers to access funds through cashiers or self-service methods.
The company has also provided services through online gaming and betting platforms, including the casino-affiliated apps BetMGM and WynnBet as well as the fantasy sports betting service DraftKings.
The news about Gordon’s promotion was reported earlier by the trade publication Global Gaming Insider.
Disclaimer: This story is auto-aggregated by a computer program and has not been created or edited by finopulse.
Publisher: Source link
