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Payments provider Global Payments has struck a $24.2bn cash-and-stock deal to buy rival Worldpay from GTCR less than two years after the private equity group bought a majority stake in the company.
As part of a three-way deal announced on Thursday, GTCR will receive 59 per cent of the deal value in cash and the remainder in Global Payments stock.
Fintech group FIS, which owned a 45 per cent stake in Worldpay, will take control of Global Payments’ issuer solutions business, which is a market leader in credit processing, valued at $13.5bn.
After the deal closes, Chicago-based GTCR will own about a 15 per cent stake in Global Payments. It originally bought a 55 per cent stake in Worldpay from FIS in July 2023 in a transaction that valued the business at $18.5bn including debt.
Worldpay is one of the world’s largest providers of payment services, used by merchants and consumers to process card transactions both online and in physical stores. The sale of the business will yield a large windfall for GTCR, a midsized buyout group that beat bigger rival Advent International to buy Worldpay in 2023.
Dan Dolev, an analyst at Mizuho, described the deal as a win for FIS, which he said had bagged Global Payments’ “crown jewel”.
“It’s a steady-eddie card-issuing business . . . this business grows almost uncorrelated with the macro,” said Dolev, adding it was “highly complementary” to FIS’ existing debit card processing business.
Shares in FIS rose 6.2 per cent on Thursday, giving it a market value of $38.6bn. Shares in Global Payments fell 18 per cent.
The deal is expected to close by the first half of 2026, provided it passes antitrust hurdles. “I doubt this deal would happen under [the previous] administration,” said Simon Taylor, a non executive director at trade body Global Digital Finance, in reference to the previous US government’s scrutiny of antitrust.
GTCR brought back Worldpay’s former chief executive Charles Drucker to lead a revitalisation of the business, after growth stalled under the previous ownership of FIS.
At a $24.25bn valuation, GTCR would have doubled its initial equity investment and FIS’ minority stake had also surged in value by billions of dollars, said people briefed on the matter.
Dolev said the deal could create a “headache” for Global Payments, which was already losing market share in payment processing to fintechs, and had acquired the part of Worldpay that faced similar issues.
“They’re losing share to begin with and now they’re buying another share loser,” he said. Payment fintechs such as Toast, Clover and Square have made inroads by targeting specific sectors, such as restaurants, as competition in payments has intensified.
Founded in 1989 as part of UK bank NatWest to process card payments at retailers, Worldpay is a rare example of a British technology group to have achieved global success. It has changed hands multiple times since it first launched under the name Streamline.
Royal Bank of Scotland took over the business as part of its acquisition of NatWest and expanded it via a series of overseas acquisitions. RBS was forced to spin it off eight years later as a condition of its £46bn bailout by the UK government at the height of the financial crisis.
Private equity groups Advent International and Bain Capital bought Worldpay in 2010, before floating it on the London Stock Exchange in 2015.
It was taken private by US payments group Vantiv two years later and moved its headquarters to Ohio. FIS bought it in 2019 in a $43bn deal as part of a wave of consolidation in the sector before spinning it off in 2023.
Wells Fargo advised Worldpay on the deal, while Morgan Stanley acted as financial adviser to GTCR.
