(31 August 2017 – Europe) Scandinavia’s largest payments processor, Nets is in the talks to finalise a private equity buy-out, valuing the company at around US$5 billion, the Financial Times reports.
According to sources Nets’ board met to decide on a buyer following an auction that has drawn the interest of the market, with US based Hellman & Friedman believed to be leading the discussions.
Nets chief executive Bo Nilsson said earlier this month that Nets is seeing “considerable interest” from potential buyers, including other payment processing players as well as private equity groups.
Should the deal go through on the reported terms, with Nets shares valued at US$5.01 billion, it would be the largest leveraged European buy-out in more than four years, surpassing the recent purchase of German pharma firm Stada which was acquired for US$4.1 billion.
It would also be another big deal in the payment processing space following US-based Vantiv's acquisition of UK-based Worldpay for US$10.35 billion, finalised last month.
Nets was bought by a consortium of private equity firms in 2014 and was then listed in Denmark in 2016. Talk of a takeover in the last three months have helped to boost Nets share price by 16 percent during that period.