Report: GTCR Close to Buying Majority Stake in Worldpay

GTCR is reportedly in advanced discussions to purchase a majority of FIS’ merchant business.

The offer by the Chicago-based private equity group would value the payments processing company’s merchant’s division at $15 billion to $20 billion, Reuters reported Monday (July 3), citing sources familiar with the matter.

The deal, assuming it goes through, marks a reversal of a previously reported plan by FIS to spin off its Worldpay business — which accounts for the bulk of its merchants operations.

The news came one day after reports that GTCR and Advent International, a buyouts firm, were vying to pick up a majority stake in Worldpay.

PYMNTS has contacted all three companies for comment but has not yet received a reply.

According to Reuters, GTCR’s offer trumped that of Advent. Sources say that if the negotiations reach a satisfactory conclusion in the next few days, FIS would retain a minority stake in Worldpay, which it acquired in 2019 for $43 billion.

The Reuters report — again citing unnamed sources — said GTCR plans to finance half of the deal via equity financing and half through borrowing. The sources — who requested anonymity — added that the acquisition talks still might fall apart in the home stretch.

As PYMNTS wrote in February, FIS had begun exploring a tax-free spinoff of its merchants operations after a strategic review the Florida-based company embarked on in 2022 under pressure from hedge funds D.E. Shaw and JANA Partners.

Last month brought the news that FIS had purchased embedded finance startup Bond Financial Technologies, a move that, as PYMNTS noted, gives the company additional banking-as-a-service (BaaS) and embedded finance talent, while also closing a gap in FIS’ embedded finance capabilities and expands the FIS portfolio of solutions for FinTechs.

“FIS likely saw in Bond’s tech the ability to power branded embedded banking services at scale, making them available to the customers of the thousands of small banks and credit unions who use the FIS core banking platform,” PYMNTS’ Karen Webster wrote in June.

It also makes those services available quicker and cheaper than FIS could do so without the acquisition, even if it worked with Bond or another BaaS company. The acquisition, Webster wrote, makes Bond a crucial part of FIS evolution into a platform that can provide an array of connected economy offerings using embedded finance.

“Now the hard work of executing against these capabilities begins,” she added. “The payments and connected economy landscape is evolving quickly, but incumbents don’t always keep pace, even with fast-moving, hard-charging FinTech entrepreneurs inside of the company leading the race.”