Payment : the French Ingenico offers the Fintech Bambora to 1.5 billion euros

New transaction billion in the payment. After the acquisition of british Worldpay to 8.7 billion by the U.s. Vantiv in early July, the French Ingenico, a global leader card readers, announced Thursday, the acquisition of the Swedish company Bambora to the investment fund Nordic Capital for a total amount of 1.5 billion euros. Founded in 2015, Bambora is built by successive acquisitions (Euroline, KeyCorp, Samport, MPS, DK Online, ePay) and describes himself as a startup in the Fintech.

Installed in Stockholm, the company, which employs more than 700 people (ten times less than Ingenico), offers a range of collection solutions, in-store, online, on mobile, in particular, an all-in-one for small and medium traders, a segment with strong potential when the rest of the market is mature and in decline. Bambora is also complementary geographically, being present in the nordic countries, North America and Australia.

Compete with Stripe or Adyen

The world of the payment is in upheaval, with the arrival of a crowd of stakeholders from the Internet and mobile. The French group, whose creation dates back to 1980, will be better able to compete with the new entrants of the payment, such as the American Stripe, the netherlands Adyen – which is expanded in the points of sale with Verifone, the american competitor Ingenico – or the subsidiary of Paypal, Braintree.

“Anticipating the evolutions of the trade of tomorrow, Ingenico Group has been pursuing for several years a strategy to expand its offering to the payment services integrated. The acquisition of Bambora is a major step in our strategic plan, to propose solutions omnicanal and a customer offering more integrated, ” says the Ceo of the French company, Philippe Lazare.

[In the payment services rather than the terminals, and to clients of the distribution, rather than of the banks, the activity of Bambora appears complementary to that of Ingenico.]

By integrating Bambora, the group Ingenico will become an important player as a” purchaser ” electronic banking (the financial institution responsible for the collection of money in the context of a distance selling or through a physical terminal, ed.) while today they are its customers (the banks in France). Bambora has been constituted at the turn of the platform acquirer for the merchants of the Swedish bank SEB. The French group will also strengthen its activity in the payment services, and more just a terminal, his line consistently over the past ten years, notably with the acquisition of the belgian Ogone in the payment online, for 360 million euros.

Unicorn Swedish

The operation, funded by its cash and bank loans, is well perceived by investors : the stock Ingenico wins nearly 7% on Thursday, bringing its value to € 5.4 billion. The buyback should have a positive impact of 5% on earnings next year and generate synergies of € 30 million in a full year within three years.

If Bambora has made 202 million euros in revenues in 2016, compared to $ 2.3 billion Ingenico, it has registered a growth of 20% in the last year (more than 30% expected this year), which is four times faster than the giant-of-sale terminals. The Swedish company has been profitable since its inception according to its general manager, Johan Tjärnberg. It is expected that ” the management of Bambora will reinvest a significant portion of its gains in shares Ingenico and will be involved in the development of Bambora within the group “. A few months ago, an ipo was mentioned.

“Bambora is a great example of the entrepreneurial firm based on innovation, representative of these unicorns in sweden based on a strong technological know-how local to create an actor in the digital world-scale “, argued one of the partners of the fund Nordic Capital, Fredrik Näslund, in reference no doubt to Spotify and the Fintech success Klarna.

Ingenico also announced Thursday a turnover of 1.22 billion euros in the first half (+8% and +5% like-for-like) and a gross operating surplus (Ebitda) of € 244 million. The French group pointed out that its debt ratio would remain below three times Ebitda, which will give him / her the flexibility to pursue other acquisitions.

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