Worldline to acquire SIX Payment Services for €2.3bn
Worldline has continued its acquisition spree and will buy Switzerland-based SIX Payment Services (SPS), a division of SIX, for €2.3 billion.
Acquisition gives Worldline +30% group revenue increase
The move is part of Worldline’s plan to strengthen its operations in Europe. SIX will become a 27% shareholder of Worldline, with Atos retaining a majority stake of 51% in Worldline.
Thierry Breton, Atos chairman and CEO, Worldline chairman, says this means it’s the “perfect long-term payment partner for the European financial industry in these times of deep regulatory and digital transformations of the sector”.
According to Worldline, the acquisition gives it a +30% group revenue increase, and a +65% increase in merchant services business attaining over €1 billion annual revenue. In addition, it makes it “number one” for payment market positions in Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and a “major reinforcement” in Germany.
The transaction is mostly paid in shares with a cash component of €0.28 billion valuing SPS at an enterprise value of €2.3 billion. Closing is expected at the end of Q4 2018, and a consolidation as of 1 January 2019.
SPS has done numerous cross-border acquisitions in the past, such as Paylife in Austria in 2013, Cetrel in Luxembourg in 2014, and in 2017 a subsidiary of VÖB-ZVD in Germany and Aduno, its competitor in Switzerland.
According to SPS, it will have around €530 million for its 2019 estimated net revenue, and currently 1,600 staff. There are no details on what will happen to these employees.
In terms of more stats, 81% of SPS’s turnover is in merchant services (c. €430 million). It also gets €100 million revenue from financial processing services to about 180 banks and financial institutions, in particular to the Swiss banking community.
The transaction comprises a ten-year commercial contract with SIX to deliver a range of processing services to the Swiss banking community.
In that context, Worldline has undertaken in a related transaction to become a 20% shareholder in TWINT (the Swiss bank owned mobile and P2P payment scheme and solution) for a €25 million investment, alongside SIX and other banking actors.
Last year, Worldline bought 100% of the share capital of First Data’s fully owned subsidiaries in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia (aka First Data Baltics or FDB) for around €73 million, financed by available cash.
Also in 2017, Worldline signed a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of the share capital of Stockholm-based Digital River World Payments (DRWP), an online global payment service provider from Digital River.
