Blackstone and CVC Capital Partners £2.9 billion bid for Paysafe Group

Overview:

• A private equity consortium, consisting of Blackstone and CVC Capital Partners, have launched a £2.9 billion takeover bid for Paysafe.
• Paysafe is an LSE listed payments processing company headquartered in the Isle of Man
• It rejected an initial offer but the board is now considering a cash offer of 590p per share.
• This represents a premium of about 9% on Paysafe's closing price on Thursday and a 34% premium on its average share price over the six months to the end of June.
• Old Mutual Global Investors, Paysafe’s largest shareholder, has sent a non-binding letter supporting the offer.
• Although the bid is understood to have a high chance of success, the Financial Times reports that an approach from others has not been ruled out. The deadline for the final offer is August 18.
• The takeover would be partly financed by the disposal of non-core units, including the Asia Gateway business, for which a deal has already been agreed.
• If the deal goes through, Paysafe's entire capital will be incorporated in a newly formed company, with the consortium taking full ownership.
• A successful bid would mark a return to Paysafe for CVC, who had taken a stake in the firm as part of its sale of Skrill Group to Optimal Payments, the AIM-listed forerunner to Paysafe in 2015, but sold their stake later that year.
• The prospective takeover is the latest in a number of M&A transactions in the payment processing sector and follows the UK’s leading payment processor Worldpay Group’s sale to US rival Vantiv for £9 billion earlier this month. Danish payment services firm Nets was also recently approached by potential buyers.
• Credit Suisse, Credit Suisse Securities, Jefferies Finance, Morgan Stanley Bank International, BMO Capital Markets and Deutsche Bank acted as arrangers of a $2,09 billion first lien facility, a $500 million second lien term facility and a $175 million revolving credit facility, to finance the acquisition.
• Credit Suisse International acted as financial adviser to Paysafe.

Patrick Martinez-Brown - Journalist