Yep - it does take more than 6 months, which is why they were in...

Yep - it does take more than 6 months, which is why they were in country for more than 6 months prior to the launch in December 2020. In December they had 25 people on the ground in the UK. And they already had a tech stack, so no need to build one. They also had group funding, and credit tools. So they had plenty of time to get the flywheel going, or at least started.

And in the 6 months they were actually operational and processing transactions (after the initial 6 months planning and getting everything going and building relationships and splashing money around) they managed to add a total of ZERO merchants according to their own ASX releases (looks like the flywheel has completely stopped). Either, the UK roll out has been incompetent, they aren't 100% accurate on their numbers of merchants over the last 6 month period, or perhaps they have just failed at execution because they left it too late. Perhaps it is a bit of all three. But it is starting to look like they have left their UK run a little bit late.

Buying LBY is more likely to cost them $250-300m, which they could do in stock. Even at that price it is still hugely below their existing trading multiples, there would be substantial synergies, and at least Zip would have a UK business and would also be #1 in NZ (which would also add value across AU and NZ from the combination of the 2 businesses). And finally they would at least be #1 in 1 country! Zip don't have the luxury of time in the UK.

Cheers
Marv