Smack dab in the middle of an otherwise sleepy fintech summer is the blockbuster news that U.S. credit card processor Vantiv has agreed to merge with fellow Finovate/FinDEVr alum, Worldpay. The deal is valued at $9.9 billion, and Vantiv reportedly edged out J.P. Morgan in the pursuit of the U.K. payments company. J.P. Morgan is Worldpay’s corporate brokerage firm.
The terms of the deal call for Vantiv to pay 385 pence per share: 55 pence in cash – 0.0672 of a new Vantiv share – and a 5 pence cash dividend per Worldpay share. The amount represents a premium of nearly 19% on the $4.8 billion company’s Monday closing share price. The new company will be led by Vantiv’s Charles Drucker and Worldpay’s Philip Jansen.
Reuters quotes analysts at Cowen and at Berenberg suggesting that Worldpay’s e-commerce business is the chief prize in the merger. Cowen analysts pointed out the lack of non-North American exposure for Vantiv, as well as its “excessive exposure to the offline U.S. market.” Worldpay supports more than 400,000 merchants in 126 currencies in 146 countries and is a major player in the payment processing market in the U.K. Vantiv is America’s biggest merchant acquirer by transaction volume. Combined, the new company’s reach extends from the U.K. and the U.S. to Europe, South America, and the Asia-Pacific region.
Vantiv demonstrated TriPOS, a next generation payment integration payment solution at FinovateFall 2014. Headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, Vantiv partnered with fellow Finovate alums, Malauzai Software and OnDot to help launch a PFM solution, Family Manager, SmartKid Control, in May. Also this year, Vantiv acquired B2B workflow automation specialist, Paymetric. Vantiv is a veteran of our developer’s conference, having presented “The Evergreen Developer Solution – triPOS Cloud” at FinDEVr New York this spring. Publicly traded on the NYSE under the ticker “VNTV” since the spring of 2012, Vantiv has a market capitalization of more than $11 billion.
Worldpay presented “It’s Not Just About Getting Paid, It’s About the Payment Journey” at our developer’s conference in Silicon Valley last fall. Founded in 1991 and based in London, U.K., the company went public in the fall of 2015, trading on the London Stock Exchange. Last month, Worldpay announced that it was testing payments in the virtual reality space, and in January, the company partnered with UnionPay for bumper Chinese New Year.
