Sports gambling is increasing business for payment processing company Paysafe Ltd., with the upcoming World Cup soccer tournament creating more opportunities for growth.
Paysafe reported first-quarter revenue rose 10% to $442.7 million, with revenue from iGaming (internet gambling) services rising 20%.
“We experienced robust activity during the NFL playoffs with outstanding operational performance during the Super Bowl and March Madness,” CEO Bruce Lowthers said in a May 13 conference call with analysts.
Paysafe is officially headquartered in London but its North American headquarters is in Jacksonville, where Lowthers and Chief Financial Officer John Crawford both are based.
The company became centered in Jacksonville after it went public in 2020 by merging with a special purpose acquisition company formed by Bill Foley, chairman of Jacksonville-based title insurer Fidelity National Financial Inc.
Paysafe says its revenue from processing services for iGaming companies is seasonal, depending on the sports calendar. But the World Cup, a global event that occurs every four years, presents a new opportunity in 2026.
Lowthers said the company is hoping for increased business in North America and Latin America related to the soccer tournament.
“Building around the World Cup is something that will be new for us, so we’ve kind of remained conservative in our forecasting of that,” he said.
“But I think for us, as we look at it, we’ll have a little bit of probably pop there in LatAm (Latin America), and certainly on our merchant acquiring side in North America because such a big component this time is in the U.S.,” he said.
This year’s World Cup games will be held in North America in June and July.
The 2022 tournament was held in Qatar.
“The last time, it was in a time zone that was very difficult. There wasn’t a lot of visibility in the U.S.,” Lowthers said.
“So, this is really geared in a better way for us,” he said.
Paysafe reported its adjusted first-quarter earnings rose 1% to $21 million, or 41 cents a share.
Cannae benefiting from soccer investment
Fidelity and Cannae Holdings Inc., the investment company spun off from Fidelity, had been shareholders of Paysafe after it went public.
However, in November 2025, Paysafe agreed to repurchase nearly 4 million of its shares from Fidelity and Cannae. That left Cannae without any Paysafe shares and Fidelity with less than 5% of Paysafe’s stock, according to Paysafe’s annual report.
Cannae has been focusing on sports-related investments and, like Paysafe, it is looking to profit from soccer.
Cannae’s largest investment is its stake in Black Knight Football, a partnership that owns several European soccer teams. Its most prominent team is British Premier League’s AFC Bournemouth.
As Cannae reported first-quarter earnings May 11, Bournemouth was in sixth place in the league which would qualify it to play in higher level European tournaments next year, CEO Ryan Caswell said in a conference call with analysts.
“European qualification is not just a sporting milestone. It materially changes the commercial, branding, and economics of the club,” Caswell said, according to a company transcript of the call.
Cannae said the overall value of its investment portfolio fell by 16 cents a share in the first quarter to $24.15. But the valuation of Black Knight Football rose by 52 cents to $6.12 per Cannae share.
Cannae’s portfolio also includes a less than 1% stake in Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is expected to go public soon.
The value of Cannae’s stake in SpaceX increased by 7 cents in the first quarter to $1.28 per Cannae share, the company said.
Beazer Homes USA Inc. said a $704 million buyout offer from Jacksonville-based Dream Finders Homes Inc. undervalued the company, and at least one analyst agreed.
Dream Finders announced an unsolicited offer to buy Atlanta-based Beazer for $25.75 a share, a 40% premium to its trading price.
However, Beazer reported its book value, representing the value of its assets, was $41.83 a share, so it rejected the Dream Finders offer as too low May 11.
Citizens JMP Securities analyst James McCanless said in a research note the offer was about 0.7% of Beazer’s tangible book value, based on his estimate, and other recent deals involving homebuilding companies resulted in higher payouts.
Japan-based Sumitomo Forestry Co. acquired Nevada-based Tri Pointe Homes Inc. May 14 for a price McCanless estimated was 1.2 times tangible book value.
In February, an affiliate of another Japanese-based company agreed to buy South Carolina-based United Homes Group Inc. for a price McCanless estimated at 1 times book value.
Beazer’s trading price jumped $6.39 to $25.16 May 11 after Dream Finders announced the offer but after Beazer rejected it, the price fell back to $22.12 at the end of the week.
After Jacksonville-based GEE Group Inc. received an unsolicited buyout offer from Star Equity Holdings Inc., CEO Derek Dewan did not specifically respond to the bid in a May 15 quarterly conference call.
Star Equity announced interest in GEE Group in January and made a formal offer May 6. Dewan acknowledged the January announcement in the conference call but did not discuss the actual offer.
“Since then (January), management and the Board have met to review and discuss multiple unsolicited expressions of interest in the Company and continue to evaluate various strategic alternatives to enhance shareholder value,” Dewan said, according to a company transcript of the call.
He reiterated that GEE Group has engaged Roth Capital Partners to review strategic alternatives and that the board of directors would consider any bona fide offer.
GEE Group reported a basically breakeven second quarter ended March 31 with net income of $14,000. The staffing company’s revenue fell 20% to $19.5 million.
“Conditions in the hiring environment for our staffing services remain challenging and have been so since the second half of 2023,” Dewan said.
“Companies and businesses continue to cautiously assess the economy and market conditions to ensure their investments in technology and human capital are strategic and sustainable,” he said.
Cadre Holdings Inc. reported first-quarter sales rose 19% to $155.4 million.
However, earnings dropped 79% to $2 million, or 5 cents a share, due to increases in compensation, interest, transaction and other expenses.
Jacksonville-based Cadre makes safety products for law enforcement and first responders and nuclear safety products.
“Today’s environment of heightened geopolitical tension and increased defense spending reinforces our belief in Cadre’s growth trajectory,” CEO Warren Kanders said in a May 12 conference call.
Cadre completed two acquisitions this year and has expanded with seven acquisitions since going public in 2021.
“M&A has been and will continue to be a critical component of Cadre’s long-term value creation strategy,” Kanders said.
“Since our IPO, we have been very clear about our intent to build Cadre into a diversified, multi-vertical provider of mission-critical safety products serving durable end markets,” he said.
FRP Holdings Inc. said first-quarter revenue rose 2.8% to $10.6 million but the Jacksonville-based commercial real estate developer reported a net loss of $687,000, or 4 cents a share.
“First-quarter results were below expectations, primarily due to lower occupancy and economic occupancy in our Washington, D.C., assets,” President David deVilliers III said in a May 13 conference call.
FRP’s developments include multifamily and mixed-used properties in the Washington market.
“As we move through 2026, the focus shifts towards execution. Simply put, we need to fill buildings, stabilize projects and turn that embedded value into dependable recurring cash flow over time,” deVilliers said.
“We have the balance sheet, liquidity and now the operational infrastructure to execute, and we believe the pieces are in place for a meaningfully different earnings profile,” he said.
Star Catcher Industries Inc. announced May 12 it raised $65 million in additional capital from a group led by B Capital, Shield Capital and Cerberus Ventures.
Jacksonville-based Star Catcher was formed in 2024 to develop a space-based energy infrastructure layer to provide electricity on demand to satellites and other spacecraft using optical power beaming.
The latest investment brings its total capital raised to $88 million.
The company said in a news release the additional capital will help it move from validated technology to scalable infrastructure.
Rayonier Advanced Materials Inc., or RYAM, announced May 14 that Julie Dill was elected as nonexecutive chair of its board.
Dill has served on the board of Jacksonville-based RYAM since 2018. She has worked in the energy, industrials and infrastructure sectors, most recently as an executive with Spectra Energy Corp. before a 2017 merger with Enbridge Inc.
Dill succeeds Lisa Palumbo as chair of the cellulose specialties products company after Palumbo completed her second two-year term as chair.
Palumbo will continue to serve as an independent director.
LFTD Partners Inc. reported first-quarter revenue of $9.16 million, about equal to last year, and a net loss of $4.2 million, or 28 cents a share, according to its quarterly report filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Jacksonville-based LFTD makes hemp-derived and other psychoactive products through a subsidiary in Kenosha, Wisconsin, called Lifted Made.