TruFin is an AIM-listed holding company that spent years building a video-game publisher, a public-sector early-payment business and an invoice-finance software firm. In June 2026 it sold the game publisher, Playstack, for an enterprise value of £125m and returned £80m of the proceeds to shareholders. What remains is a much smaller group: two businesses with about £6m of half-year revenue, a loss before tax and at least £24.9m of cash.
Two small platforms after the big one left
TruFin was admitted to AIM in February 2018 and describes itself as a holding company for technology businesses in niche markets. Today there are two. Oxygen Finance runs early-payment programmes for public bodies, mainly UK local authorities: suppliers can be paid early, and small local suppliers can do so at no cost through its FreePay scheme. In the first half of 2026 FreePay paid £454m early across more than 150,000 invoices. Oxygen also sells procurement-data subscriptions (Insights and BidStats) and partner services such as recovery audit. It is the profitable one, with half-year EBITDA of £2.1m on revenue of £4.9m.
Satago sells invoice-finance and cash-flow software. It works through lenders and accounting platforms rather than lending from its own balance sheet, and its partners have included Lloyds Bank, DF Capital, Bank of Ireland and a UK specialist lender. Its growth now comes from subscriptions to its cash-flow product, which reached 4,621 in June 2026. Half-year revenue was £1.0m. 17 Sep 2026 18 Mar 2026 18 Jul 2024 16 Jan 2025 25 Mar 2024
A game hit lifts the whole group
Until 2023 TruFin lost money. It sold its 53.8% stake in Vertus Capital for £3.2m in October 2023, and Oxygen bought the BidStats tender portal for £0.5m. Playstack, the games publisher, launched Balatro on 20 February 2024 and the game sold a million copies within a month.
Group revenue jumped 203% to £55.0m in 2024 and the group made its first full-year profit. Playstack's revenue rose from £8.0m to £44.6m. The shares moved from about 50p in January 2024 to 83p by December. 5 Oct 2023 9 Nov 2023 22 Feb 2024 18 Mar 2024 26 Mar 2024 26 Mar 2025
Lloyds walks away, then the Procurement Act bites
On 16 July 2024 Lloyds Bank ended its five-year licensing agreement with Satago. The shares fell from 80p at the end of June to 50p at the end of July. Satago's revenue halved to £1.2m in 2025 and it cut its costs, while signing new partners.
Oxygen hit its own turbulence in 2025. A change of government and the new Procurement Act slowed council activity, and its early-payment growth fell to 12% in July and August. It closed its US operation. Even so, Oxygen's 2025 EBITDA rose 57% to £3.8m. The group made £12.6m of adjusted EBITDA on £65.9m of revenue, with Playstack supplying most of it. 16 Jul 2024 26 Mar 2025 17 Sep 2025 18 Mar 2026
Buybacks, then the sale of Playstack
In 2025 TruFin ran two buybacks worth £8m, buying 7.5m shares at an average of 106p. A third, of up to £6m, began in January 2026 and bought 4.5m shares at an average of 123p. It was stopped in May, before the Playstack sale was announced. The company says buybacks happen when the shares trade below the board's own assessment of value.
On 21 May 2026 TruFin agreed to sell its 84.5% of Playstack to VantageCo. Net proceeds were £112.4m, including repayment of a £15.6m loan to the group. The sale completed on 10 June. The planned return to shareholders was first stated as £70m, then set at £80m on 12 June. A tender offer took 40.6m shares at 140p (£56.8m), cancelling 43% of the share capital. A special dividend of 43.03p a share (£22.5m) was paid in August. The shares ended July at 136p and August at 97.5p, a period that included the tender and the dividend. 21 May 2026 12 Jun 2026 9 Jul 2026 27 Jul 2026 28 Jul 2026 17 Sep 2026 18 Mar 2026
What explains the record
The results rested on one subsidiary. Playstack's hits turned a loss-making group into a profitable one. Oxygen's long contracts gave steady growth, with more than 90% of the next five years' revenue already contracted. Satago depended heavily on one bank, and when Lloyds left, its revenue halved.
The company has not said what it would have done had Playstack's success faded. It chose to sell at a point when the games business was at its largest. Management says it does not manage its businesses to be sold, and the stated aim is to hold them as cash-generating assets until owners value them. 18 Mar 2026 26 Mar 2025 16 Jul 2024 17 Sep 2026
Capital allocation is the main job
James van den Bergh is chief executive. The board's stated order is: fund high-return investment in the subsidiaries, keep enough liquidity, then return surplus cash if no better acquisition exists. It has followed that with the buybacks, the tender and the special dividend. Satago's restructuring across 2024 and 2025 worked: it reached monthly EBITDA profit in June 2026, as targeted in September 2025.
One date has slipped. A Satago management incentive plan was expected in 2025 and is now expected in the second half of 2026. Sean Brennan, who joined the board in September 2025 from Playstack's board, left on 17 September 2026 after the sale.
Insiders have bought since the return of capital. The chief executive bought about 430,000 shares between 21 and 29 September 2026 at roughly 93p to 100p. Watrium AS now holds 44.78% of the reduced share capital, up from 21% in August 2025, and Gresham House holds 20.31%. 17 Sep 2026 17 Sep 2025 21 Sep 2026 23 Sep 2026 24 Sep 2026 25 Sep 2026 27 Jul 2026
Smaller, loss-making, with cash
For the first half of 2026, continuing operations had gross revenue of £5.9m, up 11%, and adjusted EBITDA of £0.5m against a £0.1m loss a year earlier. Loss before tax was still £1.5m. Oxygen's early-payment revenue in the UK grew 17% and its new signed supplier spend was £362m. Insights customer numbers grew, but average contract values are under pressure from free procurement data and AI tools.
At 31 August 2026 the group held at least £24.9m of cash and no more than £0.5m of near-term liabilities. Revenue for July and August was above £2.1m, up 28%. The latest close was 100p on 12 October 2026. 17 Sep 2026
Profit in 2027, and what to do with the cash
The company expects a full-year loss in 2026 and targets full-year profitability in 2027 (stated 17 September 2026). Satago now expects its first full year of positive EBITDA in 2026. It will try to move lending partners onto a Lending-as-a-Service model, extend its product abroad and add accounting for small businesses. A November 2024 target for 2026 group revenue above £55m and a 20% EBITDA margin dates from before the Playstack sale; the company has not restated it.
The open question is the cash. The board is looking for bolt-on and new platform acquisitions. The quarter's concern for Oxygen is competition in data subscriptions and the effect of Local Government Reorganisation on its sales pipeline.
The board has set itself a limit on that search. 17 Sep 2026 18 Nov 2024 21 May 2026
“The Board is also mindful that, if appropriate acquisition targets cannot be sourced and secured within a reasonable timeframe, it will consider returning further capital to shareholders.” 17 Sep 2026
Written by AI from Trufin's own announcements since Oct 2023 · every paragraph links to its sources