Throwback to 2021, when Afterpay was fintech’s global darling.

Fueled by pandemic-era growth, its “buy now, pay later” app had 16 million customers and 100k+ merchants globally. It soared across the US and Europe, and its founders were household names in Australia’s tech scene. The payment disruptor was a clear frontrunner in the BNPL scene.

Enter Jack Dorsey’s Square Inc. (now Block Inc.) with a $39bn all-stock bid.

The offer, sitting at a 30%+ premium, certainly smashed records.

But behind the headline was a Hawaii summit and an 11-week sprint that led to the largest public M&A deal in Australia’s history and the biggest cross-border fintech deal globally.

Here’s how G+T and KWM stitched it together.