Record Canada Tech IPO Rewards CEO Who Shunned a Sale to Rival

The biggest technology stock sale in Toronto Stock Exchange history almost didn’t happen.

In 2017, Nuvei Corp. Chief Executive Officer Philip Fayer faced a dilemma: he was in talks to sell his payments company to a competitor when Canadian private-equity firm Novacap Management Inc. approached him to invest.

The first option was more lucrative, but had him worried about the future of the Montreal-based business he’d created 14 years earlier. He went with the second, which gave him much needed runway to continue an expansion into e-commerce, especially as it also brought Quebec’s C$333 billion ($248 billion) pension fund ...