The publication of the banns was to say the least, fast. In the aftermath of the announcement by the british Worldpay brand of interest from potential buyers, the u.s. Vantiv, one of the two contenders, has managed to seal this union, with $ 7.7 billion pounds (8,78 billion euros), in cash and in shares. JP Morgan Chase, the banking giant, quoted in the press on Tuesday, waived the right to submit a bid. Disappointment in the City : the title Worldpay falling nearly 9% on Wednesday.
The ” potential merger “, as they say with caution engaged couples in their joint statement, in reply to “a logical, strategic, commercial and financial,” they explain. It must give birth to a specialist in payments, ” world-class, complementary activities “, a value combined market of $ 27 billion.
The Fintech, the GAFA and the banks in ambush
If the prospect of a counter-offer seems to be moving away, the operation is not yet in the pocket and its concrete modalities still need to be discussed. An audit mutual is expected, and the transaction will be submitted to a vote of the shareholders of both companies and the competition authorities. It is already recognised that Worldpay will be removed from the London stock Exchange after the merger and that its current shareholders will own approximately 41% of the capital of the new group. Its director-general, co-lead the group merged with Vantiv. But the board of directors will be composed of four members of Worldpay and seven members of Vantiv.
The american is a little larger than its british competitor, who is a leader in the Uk, well positioned in the e-commerce and now also on the market in the u.s., Vantiv has processed more than 21 billion transactions last year, up from nearly $ 15 billion for Worldpay, a turnover of 3.5 billion dollars for the first and $ 1.4 billion for the second. The shareholders of the payment system of the uk, the funds Advent International and Bain Capital, which had been introduced in the stock Exchange at the end of 2015, make a very nice case : the transaction values Worldpay to 3.85 pounds, which is 37% higher than the ipo price there for eighteen months. Its previous owner, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), had been forced to give in to these funds within the framework of its bailout with public funds in 2010.
Other operations may follow in this universe of payments in a full, rolling boil, which takes advantage of the decrease in cash for the benefit of the regulations in card and suffered the assaults of many new players from the Fintech, such as Stripe and Adyen or GAFA such as Amazon. The Danish Net A/S has revealed this weekend that he had been approached. And as we saw with JP Morgan, banks also have a vested interest in these strategic stakeholders of the payment
The action of the French Worldline, controlled by Atos Origin, who wanted to redeem Worldpay in 2010, has gained to a high of 2.87% on Wednesday, the third highest increase in the day of the index SBF 120.
