Planet (company)

Last updated
Planet
Company type Privately held
Founded1985
Headquarters,
Area served
Worldwide
Key people
Brent Warrington (CEO)
ProductsPayments, Retail and Hospitality Software, VAT refund services (Tax Free Shopping); Dynamic Currency Conversion; Gift Card; Card Processing; Retail Sales & Cultural Training; Tourism Marketing Services; Business Intelligence
Number of employees
+2500
Website www.weareplanet.com

Planet (formerly known as Fintrax and Premier Tax Free), [1] is a financial services company, specialised in multicurrency payments, credit card processing, Hospitality and Retail Software and the management of VAT refunds (Tax-Free) for tourists. Planet provide their services to overseas visitors, international retail groups, hotels and banks around the world. It is one of largest tax refund providers globally.

Contents

With global headquarters in London and regional headquarters in Paris, Galway, Dortmund, Zurich and Madrid, Planet operates in 64 markets across 5 continents and employs over 2500 people worldwide.

History

Founded in Galway, Ireland in 1985 as Cashback Ltd., Premier Tax Free facilitated VAT refunds for international visitors to Ireland; a service that enables non-resident visitors to reclaim VAT on goods they purchase and privately export, according to EU legislation. [2]

Between 1993 and 1999, the business expanded throughout Europe, launching in France and then opening operations in the United Kingdom, Italy, Switzerland, Spain, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Poland.

In 2000, dynamic currency conversion was launched and further operations opened in Australia and Canada.

In 2009, the company was presented with a Retail Systems Award for ‘Cards and Payments Solution of the Year’ following a project with British department store House of Fraser. [3]

In 2011, Premier Tax Free reportedly increased the Tax Free Shopping transactions by 150% in luxury fashion retailer, Hugo Boss, by introducing an automated point of sale solution. [4]

In 2012, following further expansions into Uruguay, Greece and Argentina, previous owner and entrepreneur, Gerard Barry, sold Fintrax Group including Premier Tax Free to private equity firm Exponent for €170m. [5] [6] [7] [8]

In 2013, Premier Tax Free merged with Tax Free Worldwide. The joint entity provides services to over 150,000 merchants worldwide. [9]

In 2015, French investment company Eurazeo acquired the majority stake in Fintrax from Exponent Private Equity, valuing the company at €550m. [10]

In 2017, Fintrax Group acquired Planet Payment, a leading provider of international and multi-currency processing services, for $250 million. [11] It also announced the acquisition of GB TaxFree, the third largest tax refund provider in the UK, for £15 million. [12]

In 2018, The company is rebranded Planet. [13]

In 2021 Advent International and Eurazeo invested in Planet to co-control the company and make it an integrated digital payment champion offering acquiring, processing, digital wallets, VAT refund and currency conversion services to merchants in the Retail, Hospitality, Food & Beverage, Parking and Financial sectors. [14]

In 2022 Planet acquired Proximis, [15] Datatrans AG, protel hotelsoftware, Hoist Group. [16] and Avantio, [17] Brent Warrington is appointed as CEO.

In 2023 Planet acquired 3 distributors of protel software: Ideosoft (with operations in France and Morocco), REBAG DATA (one of the largest distributors of hotel software within the Swiss market) and XN PMS Limited (operating in the UK and UAE). [18] . At the end of the year, Planet also announced the acquisition of Horizon Tax-Free from Fexco in Ireland [19] .


Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intuit</span> American financial software company

Intuit Inc. is an American multinational business software company that specializes in financial software. The company is headquartered in Mountain View, California, and the CEO is Sasan Goodarzi. Intuit's products include the tax preparation application TurboTax, personal finance app Mint, the small business accounting program QuickBooks, the credit monitoring service Credit Karma, and email marketing platform Mailchimp. As of 2019, more than 95% of its revenues and earnings come from its activities within the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skrill</span> E-commerce payment business

Skrill is part of Paysafe Limited, a global payments platform. It is one of Paysafe's digital wallet brands and was established in 2001 to offer multiple online payment and money transfer services. Skrill operates in more than 100 countries with the digital wallet offered in more than 40 currencies. The company facilitates multiple payment options including card payments, bank transfers and local payment methods. The funds in a Skrill account can then be used to pay merchants and other Skrill users or converted into cryptocurrency.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Duty-free shop</span> Type of retail outlet

A duty-free shop or store is a retail outlet whose goods are exempt from the payment of certain local or national taxes and duties, on the requirement that the goods sold will be sold to travelers who will take them out of the country, who will then pay duties and taxes in their destination country. Which products can be sold duty-free vary by jurisdiction, as well as how they can be sold, and the process of calculating the duty or refunding the duty component.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taxation in the Republic of Ireland</span> Irish tax code

Taxation in Ireland in 2017 came from Personal Income taxes, and Consumption taxes, being VAT and Excise and Customs duties. Corporation taxes represents most of the balance, but Ireland's Corporate Tax System (CT) is a central part of Ireland's economic model. Ireland summarises its taxation policy using the OECD's Hierarchy of Taxes pyramid, which emphasises high corporate tax rates as the most harmful types of taxes where economic growth is the objective. The balance of Ireland's taxes are Property taxes and Capital taxes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Verifone</span> Multinational point-of-sale equipment manufacturer

Verifone, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in Coral Springs, Florida. Verifone provides technology for electronic payment transactions and value-added services at the point-of-sale. Verifone sells merchant-operated, consumer-facing and self-service payment systems to the financial, retail, hospitality, petroleum, government and healthcare industries. The company's products consist of POS electronic payment devices that run its own operating systems, security and encryption software, and certified payment software, and that are designed for both consumer-facing and unattended environments.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tax-free shopping</span>

Tax-free shopping (TFS) is the buying of goods in another country or state and obtaining a refund of the sales tax which has been collected by the retailer on those goods. The sales tax may be variously described as a sales tax, goods and services tax (GST), value added tax (VAT), or consumption tax.

The tax system of the Russian Federation is a complex of relationships between fiscal authorities and taxpayers in the field of all existing taxes and fees. It implies continuous communication of all its members and related objects: payers; legislative framework; oversight authorities; types of mandatory payments. The Russian Tax Code is the primary tax law for the Russian Federation. The Code was created, adopted and implemented in three stages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Franchise Group</span> American holding company

Franchise Group, Inc. is an American privately-held holding company that acquires and manages mainly franchise companies. It owns brands in various retail industries including American Freight, Buddy's Home Furnishings, The Vitamin Shoppe, Pet Supplies Plus, Sylvan Learning and Badcock Home Furniture.

Ingenico is a French merchant services technology company, that facilitates secure electronic transactions. The company expanded as a manufacturer of point of sale (POS) payment terminals to also include complete merchant payment SaaS and related services.

Taxation represents the biggest source of revenues for the Peruvian government. For 2016, the projected amount of taxation revenues was S/.94.6 billion. There are four taxes that make up approximately 90 percent of the taxation revenues:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Euronet Worldwide</span> Electronic payments company

Euronet Worldwide is an American provider of global electronic payment services with headquarters in Leawood, Kansas. It offers automated teller machines (ATM), point of sale (POS) services, credit/debit card services, currency exchange and other electronic financial services and payments software. Among others, it provides the prepaid subsidiaries Transact, PaySpot, epay, Movilcarga, TeleRecarga and ATX.

Epicor Software Corporation is a business software company based in Austin, Texas founded in 1972. Its products are aimed at the manufacturing, distribution, retail and services industries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Finastra</span> Software companies of the United Kingdom

Finastra is a financial software company headquartered in London, England. The company offers a portfolio of products and solutions to the retail banking, transaction banking, lending, and treasury capital markets. Finastra was formed in 2017 by the combination of London-based Misys, a provider of financial operations software, and global payments and lending technology provider D+H. At the time of its formation, Finastra was considered the third-largest financial services company in the world.

Eurazeo is a French private equity firm and investment group headquartered in Paris. With a diversified portfolio of €35 billion in assets under management, including €23 billion from third parties, invested in more than 600 companies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radiant Systems</span>

Radiant Systems was a provider of technology to the hospitality and retail industries that was acquired by NCR Corporation in 2011. Radiant was based in Atlanta, Georgia. In its last financial report as a public company, Radiant reported revenues of $90 million and net income of $14 million in the six months ended 30 June 2011. At the time of its acquisition, Radiant employed over 1,300 people worldwide. Radiant had offices in North America, Europe, Asia and Australia.

Worldpay Group plc was a payment processing company. It was formerly listed on the London Stock Exchange until 16 January 2018 when it was acquired by Vantiv. The combined company then took the name Worldpay, Inc. Worldpay, Inc. was acquired by FIS in July 2019 for $43 billion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fexco</span> Irish financial services and payments company

Fexco is an Ireland-based financial services and financial technology company focusing on bureau de change and payment card services. Its head office is located in Killorglin, County Kerry. As of 2019, Fexco reports it has more than 2,500 staff and of these, 1,200 are based in Ireland, with other staff in 29 countries worldwide, including the UK, Spain, New Zealand, United States, Middle East and Asia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Payoneer</span> Financial services company

Payoneer Global Inc. is an American financial services company that provides online money transfer, digital payment services and provides customers with working capital.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Global Blue</span> Swiss financial services company

Global Blue is a tourism shopping tax refund company headquartered in Nyon, Switzerland. The company is best known for tax-free shopping, a VAT/GST refund product and also operates in dynamic currency conversion, marketing services, point-of-sale technology, retail staff education, and customer intelligence. It is the industry leader for providing tax refunds, with Planet as its closest competitor.

Paysafe Limited is a multinational online payments company. Paysafe offers payment processing, digital wallet and online cash solutions to businesses and consumers, with particular experience of serving the global entertainment sectors. The group offers services both under the Paysafe brand and subsidiary brands that have become part of the group through several mergers and acquisitions, most notably Neteller, Skrill, SafetyPay, PagoEfectivo, Paysafecash and paysafecard.

References

  1. "Company History". Fintrax.
  2. "Travellers leaving the EU VAT export refund scheme". European Commission. Archived from the original on 2014-06-11.
  3. "Hall of Fame 2009". Retail Systems Awards. Archived from the original on 2014-05-13.
  4. "Premier Tax Free helps Hugo Boss increase tax free shopping by 150%". A1 Retail magazine. Archived from the original on 2014-05-14. Retrieved 2014-07-11.
  5. "Buyout groups pick up Irish bargains". Financial Times.
  6. "Fintrax". Acquisition International.
  7. "Fintrax founder sells up for €170m to private equity firm". Independent.ie. 17 August 2012.
  8. "Financial services group in Galway sells for €170m". The Irish Times.
  9. "Macfarlanes advises Exponent on Tax Free Worldwide acquisition". Macfarlanes. Archived from the original on 2014-07-14.
  10. "Eurazeo to pay up to 335 mln eur for Fintrax". Reuters.
  11. "Fintrax Group to Acquire Planet Payment". Planet Payment. 26 October 2017.
  12. "Moody's assigns first time B2 CFR to Fintrax; outlook stable". Moody's. 12 December 2007.
  13. "Fintrax Group brings multiple businesses into one brand: Planet". Retail Times. 17 May 2018.
  14. "Advent International and Eurazeo complete investment in Planet". 21 October 2021.
  15. "Planet acquires Proximis to deliver unified commerce with integrated payments for European retailers". 2 December 2021.
  16. "Planet Combines With Four Other Companies, Chooses PayPal Veteran Brent Warrington as CEO". pymnts.com. 17 March 2022.
  17. "Planet acquires Avantio to enter vacation rental sector". short term rentalz. 22 July 2022.
  18. "Planet drives global hospitality growth ambitions with three acquisitions". 12 January 2023.
  19. "Payments firm Planet pays €5m for Fexco's Irish tax-free business". 5 November 2023.