Worldline, a European payments and transactional services provider, has agreed to acquire French payment services company Ingenico in a stock-cum-cash deal worth €7.8bn.
Through the deal, the combined company is expected to take the fourth spot in the world for payment services. With a combined workforce of around 20,000 employees, the enlarged entity will have a physical presence across nearly 50 countries.
Post-merger, the combined payment solutions company will serve around a million merchants and 1,200 financial institutions.
Worldline chairman and CEO Gilles Grapinet said: “This is a landmark transaction for the industrial consolidation of European payments, highly value creative for all our stakeholders and for the shareholders of both companies, and which ambitions to reinforce the role of Europe within the global digital payment ecosystem.”
Founded in 1980, the Paris-based Ingenico has been among the major payment terminal manufacturers in the world. The company is estimated to have a market share of 37% of the global payment terminal market, with more than 30 million terminals installed across the world.
The company is said to cater to more than 550,000 merchants through a portfolio of payment solutions, which includes in store and online payment processing and the management of over 300 payment methods.
Ingenico has operations across 170 countries and has a workforce of nearly 8,000 people.
Worldline, on the other hand, focuses its operations on three pillars of business, which are merchant services, financial services, and mobility and e-transactional services.
As part of the deal, the combined entity will strengthen its controlling position in Payone, the joint venture between Ingenico and Deutscher Sparkassenverlag (DSV), a German savings bank group. This is expected to be done by the contribution of Worldline’s merchant services activities in Germany and Austria to Payone.
Ingenico CEO Nicolas Huss said: “In a fast moving global payment market in which scale matters, the combination of Ingenico with Worldline is completely aligned with our strategic vision. Our companies’ complementarities will allow us to build a unique European leader with a worldwide reach, providing high value-added offerings to our customers and partners.
“The combined entity will benefit from increased access to new strategic opportunities, markets, expertise and solutions in an industry that is consolidating rapidly.”
Terms of Worldline, Ingenico merger
As per the terms of the merger, Worldline will launch a tender offer for all Ingenico’s shares. The total consideration will be made up of 81% shares and 19% in cash.
After closing of the transaction, the original Worldline’s shareholders will hold about 65% stake in the enlarged entity, while the existing Ingenico’s shareholders will own the remaining stake of around 35%.
The deal will be subject to regulatory, merger control clearances, Worldline shareholders’ approval, and other customary conditions.
In another development, French IT company Atos revealed plans to sell a further stake of 13.1% in Worldline via a private placement by way of accelerated bookbuilding offering. If successful, the placement will reduce Atos’ stake in the payment services company to 3.8%.
