Vantiv Buys Payments Giant Worldpay In $10 Billion Deal

Worldpay, the U.K.’s largest payment processing firm, confirmed on Wednesday that it will be acquired by Vantiv (NYSE:VNTV) , 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 (NYSE:JPM) 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.

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