French payments firm Worldline, a subsidiary of Atos, has agreed to acquire SIX Payment Services, the payment services arm of Swiss stock exchange operator SIX, for €2.3bn.
The deal consideration includes a cash payment of €283m and issue of 49.1 million new Worldline shares.
Following the completion of the deal in the fourth quarter of this year, SIX would own a 27% stake in Worldline while Atos will continue to hold a majority stake of 51% in the company.
The deal, currently pending regulatory approvals, will increase Worldline’s headcount by 1,600.
Worldline expects the deal to increase its group revenue by 30% and to be accretive to earnings per share from 2019.
The French payments company also expects the acquisition to increase its merchant services business and financial services business by 65% and 12%, respectively. The merged entity will have a 10% European market share in merchant acquiring and 20% share in financial services, Worldline said.
The deal will offer Worldline new payment market positions in Switzerland, Austria, Luxembourg and major reinforcement in Germany.
The transaction is expected to offer synergies of €110m by 2022, of which 50% is expected in 2020.
Worldline CEO Gilles Grapinet said: “Together, we will benefit from reinforced industrial scale, numerous synergies and complementarities that will boost our development, our profitability and that will at the same time, enlarge significantly our offerings to our customers, strongly benefit to our shareholders while opening new professional development opportunities for our all our employees.
“Through this merger, our Company with its intact financial firepower and its unrivalled size in our continent, will be better positioned than ever to continue its strategic endeavour to build, in the heart of Europe, a new global leader of the payment industry.”
