Sometimes, the government is here to help. The Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit that killed Visa’s acquisition of Plaid promises to become a windfall for shareholders in the fintech startup, as The Information reported today. Visa had agreed to pay $5.3 billion for Plaid, but there’s now investor interest in the company at a valuation of $15 billion or more.
The episode is somewhat reminiscent of Cisco’s agreement last week to nearly double what it is paying for fiber optic networking firm Acacia Communications. A few days earlier, Acacia had backed out of the deal claiming that Chinese authorities were refusing to approve it. That may or may not have been true but the excuse of regulatory opposition certainly paid dividends for Acacia shareholders.
