Nordic payments processor Nets nears takeover decision and H&F is in pole position
Private equity deal mania is upon us, especially in Europe. Flush with cash, buyout firms are getting braver and bolder, while their targets are getting larger.
Case in point comes via a late-night scoop from DD's Arash Massoudi, Javier Espinoza and FT banking editor Martin Arnold that went up just a few hours ago.
US private equity firm Hellman & Friedman is the frontrunner to win the DKr31bn (~$5bn) race to take private Nets A/S, which is Scandinavia's largest payments processor. The two sides could enter exclusivity within the next day or two, DD understands.
However, other suitors are watching closely and Nets is publicly traded so nothing is guaranteed. Read the full story on what would be the largest take-private in Europe in more than four years here.
Nets was bought in 2014 by US private equity groups Bain Capital and Advent International, in a consortium with Danish pension fund ATP Group for DKr17bn. The consortium listed the business just last year.
The journey sounds remarkably similar to that of Worldpay, the UK-based payments processor that was bought by Bain and Advent back in 2010 and listed in 2015. Vantiv, a US rival, agreed to gobble up Worldpay in a £9.3bn deal earlier this month. See how Worldpay ranks against Nets here:
Meanwhile, CVC and Blackstone have sealed a £3bn take-private of UK digital payments company Paysafe.
What's driving all the deals in the payment processing space? Three things: the opportunity to consolidate a fragmented market, the chance to strip out duplicate costs and a shift away from cash and cheques towards digital payments.