Blackstone Group and CVC Capital Partners are expected to make nearly three times their investment with the $9 billion sale of Paysafe Group Holdings to Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp. II, a person familiar with the matter said.
Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp. II, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, from William P. Foley II, agreed on Monday to merge with Paysafe.
The deal, which includes a $2 billion private placement, is valued at $9 billion. It is expected to close during the first half of 2021. The new company will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker PSFE, a statement said.
Blackstone and CVC are rolling a significant amount of equity in the deal that will see a return to the public markets for Paysafe. Blackstone, CVC and Paysafe management will remain the biggest investors of Paysafe, the statement said.
“Upon the formation and initial listing of Foley Trasimene, our team initiated a diligent and thorough search process to source an appropriate partner, with the goal to announce a partnership prior to year-end. Thanks to the hard work of our team, we have reached this milestone with Paysafe as our ideal partner,” Foley, the founder and chairman of Foley Trasimene, said in a statement.
Founded in 1996, Paysafe is a payments platform that connects businesses and consumers across 70 payment types in over 40 currencies globally. Paysafe, of London, processed $98 billion of annualized transaction volume in 2019. It employs about 3,000 people.
Paysafe had been seeking to go public in 2019, Reuters reported. It chose to merge with a special purpose acquisition vehicle. SPACS have become an increasingly popular way to go public for many firms, especially those owned by private-equity firms. Such deals often provide a quicker way to tap the public equity markets than traditional IPOs and offer more certainty on valuation.
Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp. II is the latest SPAC from Bill Foley, a noted financial services investor. Foley Trasimene Acquisition Corp. II went public in August, collecting $1.3 billion, according to SEC filings. The SPAC had 24 months to complete a business combination or return the money to investors, the filing said. Foley is the chairman of Fidelity National Financial (FNF) and Black Knight (BKI). Cannae Holdings, the diversified holding company led by Foley, is investing $500 million in the Paysafe merger, including $350 million in the private placement, a separate statement said.
Philip McHugh, PaySafe’s CEO, will continue to lead the company while Foley will become chairman. “This transaction will allow us to accelerate our growth opportunities across the business, particularly in fast growth sectors such as iGaming where we are the payments partner of choice,” McHugh said in the statement.
With the merger, Paysafe will become a public company again. Blackstone and CVC acquired Paysafe in 2017, taking the payments processor private in a roughly $3.9 billion deal. Blackstone used its seventh global private-equity fund, Blackstone Capital Partners VII, to invest in Paysafe. BCP VII raised $17 billion in 2015, according to media reports. Paysafe declined to comment on the returns to the sellers.
The Paysafe merger is the latest in a consolidating European payments market. Nexi (NEXI.Italy), the Italian payments processor, said in November it would buy Nets, a Nordic payments provider, for $9.2 billion. Nexi is also scooping up SIA, a rival Italian payments company, for $5.4 billion. In February, financial services company Wordline agreed to buy Ingenico Group, a point of sale terminal provider, for €7.8 billion.
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