Back to top

Image: Bigstock

Vantiv Buys Payments Giant Worldpay in $10 Billion Deal

Read MoreHide Full Article

Worldpay, the U.K.’s largest payment processing firm, confirmed on Wednesday that it will be acquired by Vantiv , a U.S. based payments company, for $10 billion.

Vantiv is buying Worldpay for £3.85 per share.Worldpay shareholders are entitled to 55 pence in cash for each Worldpay share and 0.0672 new Vantiv shares. These terms represent an 18.9% premium to Worldpay’s closing share price in London on July 3rd.

After the merger, Worldpay shareholders will own about 41% of the share capital of the combined group.

“The Boards of Worldpay and Vantiv see compelling strategic, commercial and financial rationale for combining Worldpay and Vantiv’s complementary businesses,” Worldpay said in a statement issued on Wednesday.

“The Potential Merger creates a scale world class payments group in a dynamic market, with deep payments capabilities, product and vertical expertise and strong distribution channels to serve merchants around the world in the global e-commerce market, and in-store and online in the UK and US markets.”

The two companies will effectively merge as top leadership from Worldpay will remain on board. Charles Drucker, the current CEO of Vantiv, will take on a role as executive chairman and Co-CEO while Philip Jansen, Worldpay’s CEO, will become Co-CEO. The board will consist of four Worldpay and seven Vantiv directors.

Acquiring Worldpay will help Vantiv expand its reach to more markets. Currently, Vantiv mainly serves consumers in the U.S. while Worldpay serves about 400,000 customers and processes payments in 146 countries and 126 currencies.

This news comes a day after Worldpay announced that Vantiv and JP Morgan (JPM - Free Report) had approached the company for potential acquisitions. JP Morgan has stated that it does not plan to make a rival offer for Worldpay.

The completion of this merger will be based on shareholder approval. The companies are now going through a due diligence process based on U.K. regulatory rules, which will be complete by August 1st.

Today's Stocks from Zacks' Hottest Strategies

It's hard to believe, even for us at Zacks. But while the market gained +18.8% from 2016 - Q1 2017, our top stock-picking screens have returned +157.0%, +128.0%, +97.8%, +94.7%, and +90.2% respectively.

And this outperformance has not just been a recent phenomenon. Over the years it has been remarkably consistent. From 2000 - Q1 2017, the composite yearly average gain for these strategies has beaten the market more than 11X over. Maybe even more remarkable is the fact that we're willing to share their latest stocks with you without cost or obligation. See Them Free>>


See More Zacks Research for These Tickers


Normally $25 each - click below to receive one report FREE:


JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) - free report >>