The Ordinary Shares of Cornerstone FS plc were admitted to trading at 8.00am on Tuesday 6 April 2021, under the stock market ticker CSFS. The placing price was 61p per share, resulting in a market capitalisation of £12.4 million.

Cornerstone FS plc, is a cloud-based provider of international payment, currency risk management and electronic account services to SMEs. Its strategy is to build a significant business in the provision of payment services, foreign exchange and currency risk management. Cornerstone makes it easy for SMEs to handle international payments and currency. Its primary customer base are small and medium sized enterprises: generally businesses with fewer than 250 employees. It also provides services for some HNWIs, some of whom are owners or directors of SME customers. Cornerstone currently has over 740 clients.

Cornerstone has developed and built, in-house, its own proprietary cloud-based software platform. The platform can be fully customized to allow third parties and marketing partners to integrate it into their own businesses and websites presenting it as their own branded platform. This platform is currently provided, on a white label Saas basis, to approximately 26 third-party client aggregators.

The funds raised will enable Cornerstone to pursue a combination of acquisitive and organic growth, building on the capabilities of its technology platform. The ability to use its shares as acquisition currency is a significant part of Cornerstone’s growth strategy. Additionally, funds will also be used to pay the costs of the IPO and develop a broader range of products and services.

Julian Wheatland, Chief Executive Officer of Cornerstone, said: "We are pleased to announce our successful placing and admission to AIM. It is an important milestone and a key element of our strategy. We already have more than 700 customers who give us a strong financial foundation and we plan to build on that to fuel value creation. 

The ‘non-financial institutions’ segment of the market is highly fragmented with many smaller players struggling to cope with the ever-increasing regulatory demands and the costs of acquiring up-to-date technology.  At the same time, SME customers are seeking better quality and more bespoke services than are provided by the major financial institutions that dominate the FX market. This provides us with a clear opportunity for our offering, which, with our strong board, excellent management team and highly scalable platform, we are well-placed to deliver. 

We'd really like to thank our current investors and welcome new ones as we embark on the next phase of our development.” 

SPARK Advisory Partners is acting as Nominated Adviser and Peterhouse Capital and Pello Capital are acting as Joint Brokers in relation to the IPO. Luther Pendragon is acting as Financial PR Adviser.