MILAN & NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--SIA, a European high-tech leader in payment infrastructure and services, and First Data Corporation (NYSE: FDC), a global leader in commerce-enabling technology, have signed an agreement for SIA to acquire First Data’s card processing businesses in parts of Central and Southeastern Europe for €375 million. In 2017, these businesses generated a combined revenue of approximately €100 million for First Data.
This acquisition by SIA provides card processing, card production, call center and back-office services, including 13.3 million payment cards, 1.4 billion transactions, in addition to the management of POS terminals and ATMs. These businesses are primarily located in 7 countries: Greece, Croatia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, Serbia and Slovakia.
First Data remains highly committed to the European issuer processing business, maintaining its focus on serving its significant client base, primarily with its leading VisionPLUS platform.
As a result of the transaction, SIA will become a leading player in processing and services in the region. The agreement includes the transfer of about 1,400 First Data employees into SIA.
“This acquisition is in line with our strategy to become the leading European independent digital payments platform. SIA is further strengthening its position in the e-payments international market, increasing its market shares in e-money high-growth countries,” said Massimo Arrighetti, CEO of SIA.
“This transaction aligns with our focus on portfolio management. While these are solid businesses, aspects of their operations are no longer core to our strategy, and this sale allows us to deploy the proceeds to create value in line with our capital allocation priorities,” said Frank Bisignano, Chairman and CEO of First Data. “We believe we have found an excellent partner for this transaction as SIA’s integrated payment infrastructure and service offerings and presence across Europe make it the perfect home for these businesses and puts our former customers in capable hands.”
The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2018 and is subject to normal closing conditions.
Deutsche Bank and K&L Gates were respectively financial advisors and counsel to First Data on the transaction.
HSBC acted as financial advisor to SIA, White & Case as legal advisor and PWC as tax and accounting due diligence advisor.
About First Data
First Data (NYSE: FDC) is a global leader
in commerce-enabling technology and solutions, serving approximately six
million business locations and 4,000 financial institutions in more than
100 countries around the world. The company’s 22,000 owner-associates
are dedicated to helping companies, from start-ups to the world’s
largest corporations, conduct commerce every day by securing and
processing more than 3,000 transactions per second and $2.4 trillion per
year.
About SIA
SIA is European leader in the design, creation and
management of technology infrastructures and services for Financial
Institutions, Central Banks, Corporates and the Public Sector, in the
areas of payments, cards, network services and capital markets. SIA
Group provides its services in 48 countries, and also operates through
its subsidiaries in Austria, Germany, Romania, Hungary and South Africa.
The company also has branches in Belgium and the Netherlands, and
representation offices in the UK and Poland.
In 2017, SIA managed 13.1 billion clearing transactions, 6.1 billion card transactions, 3.3 billion payments, 56.2 billion financial transactions and carried 784 terabytes of data on the network.
The Group is made up of eight companies: the parent SIA, the Italian companies Emmecom (innovative network applications), P4cards (card processing), SIApay (advanced collection and payment services) and Ubiq (innovative technology solutions for marketing), Perago in South Africa, PforCards in Austria and SIA Central Europe in Hungary.
The Group, which currently has over 2,000 employees, closed 2017 with revenues of €567.2 million.
For more information, go to www.sia.eu/en.
Safe Harbor
Statements in this press release regarding First
Data Corporation’s business which are not historical facts are
“forward-looking statements.” All forward-looking statements are
inherently uncertain as they are based on various expectations and
assumptions concerning future events and they are subject to numerous
known and unknown risks and uncertainties which could cause actual
events or results to differ materially from those projected including
the parties’ ability to successfully satisfy the normal closing
conditions.
