ACI Worldwide Takeover Slowed by Banking Turmoil

Motive Partners’ potential acquisition of payments company ACI Worldwide has reportedly run into some roadblocks.

The private equity firm is still working on the purchase, although talks have apparently slowed down due to recent upheaval in the banking industry and the cost of funding deals, per published reports Wednesday (May 10).

A representative for Motive Partners declined to comment on the reports. PYMNTS has contacted ACI Worldwide seeking comment but has not yet received a reply.

News broke at the start of the year that ACI, a provider of payments software, was in talks with private equity operations in hopes of finding a potential buyer.

The company is thought of as a prime target for a takeover, as it is one of the payments sector’s smaller players, and because there has been a lot of consolidation in the space during recent years.

Motive Partners, which specializes in backing tech companies in the financial space, emerged as a bidder for ACI in March, according to a Bloomberg News report.

The news comes as funding for tech companies has been harder to come by following the banking crisis that began in March with the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), with tech funding dropping 55% in the first quarter.

SVB. which either funded or served almost half of venture-backed companies and many venture capital (VC) outfits, rocked a sector that was already experiencing a downturn in funding.

“Just over a year ago, the startup funding landscape was basking in the glow of a sizzling 2021 and hoping to carry the momentum into the new year,” PYMNTS wrote earlier this year.

“However, at the beginning of 2023, funding for startups has considerably slowed down, almost to a crawl.”

PYMNTS looked at the effect of this trend on the FinTech world soon after SVB’s downfall, writing that proof “of post-SVB investor anxiety is already taking shape, as FinTechs going public since 2020 are now trading at 54% below offer price.”

Lending platforms in particular fueled this recent rout, pushing the PYMNTS IPO Index down almost 5% in March. But FinTechs focused on other suffering sectors are seeing difficulties as well, as mortgage facilitation platform Blend saw its stock drop 40% over the past five sessions.

The reality, PYMNTS argued, “is that not all FinTechs may survive what’s already turning out to be a turbulent 2023.”