M&A dealmakers are working overtime in Europe. While 2019 was the year of the mega-mergers in the U.S. market, payments players across the pond are not sitting idly by. Italian payments processor, Nexi, announced a deal to buy Nordic payments player, Nets, for a cool $9.2 billion.
This comes after the ink was not even dry yet on a deal for Nexi to buy Italian rival, SIA. Meanwhile, the acquisition of Ingenico by Worldline just closed for a reported $8.6 billion. Looks like European firms are bulking up in order to be serious competitors on the global payments landscape.
The following excerpt from a Barron’s article reports more on the topic:
Nexi has clinched another deal in its drive to create a paytech leader in Europe. The Italian payments processor is buying Nets, a Nordic payments provider, for $9.2 billion. The transaction comes just weeks after Nexi agreed to buy SIA, a rival Italian payments company, for $5.4 billion.
The all-stock deal values Nets at €7.8 million ($9.2 billion), including €1.5 billion in debt, a statement said. Nets shareholders will receive 406.6 million shares of Nexi and own 31% of Nexi-Nets-SIA. The transaction includes an earn-out of up to €250 million, payable in 2022 that is contingent on Nets 2021 earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or Ebitda, performance.
“We are creating a company with a very large scale in the European paytech market that is present in most attractive markets,” Paolo Bertoluzzo, Nexi’s CEO, who will be CEO of the combined companies, said on a conference call Monday announcing the deal.
In October, Nexi and SIA culminated months of merger discussions when they agreed to combine in a $5.4 billion deal. With Nets, the combined companies will be a leading merchant acquirer as well as a top card processor, Bertoluzzo said on the call.
Overview by Raymond Pucci, Director, Merchant Services at Mercator Advisory Group