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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 Worldpay’s issuer solutions arm, 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.
The sale will yield a large and speedy windfall for GTCR, a midsized buyout group that beat larger rival Advent International to buy Worldpay from FIS in 2023 in one of the largest corporate carve-outs in history.
GTCR brought back Worldpay’s former chief executive Charles Drucker to lead a revitalisation of the business, which had seen its growth stall under the ownership of FIS.
GTCR invested more than $5bn of equity to take control of Worldpay and raised more than $8bn in debt to fund the purchase, people told the Financial Times at the time.
At a $24.25bn valuation, GTCR will have more than doubled its initial equity investment and FIS has also seen its minority stake surge in value by billions of dollars.
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