Worldline to buy merchant-acquiring activities of Italy's Banco Desio (updated)

Banco di Desio e della Brianza

07/11/2022 06:39

(Adds details and background)
       PARIS, Nov 7 (Reuters) - French payment services company
Worldline  WLN.PA  announced on Monday a deal to buy the
merchant-acquiring activities of Italy's Banco Desio  DESI.MI ,
which delivers payment solutions for various businesses, for
about 100 million euros ($99.4 million).
    The payments sector has seen several big takeover deals in
recent years as the growing use of e-commerce platforms and
smartphones sparked competition to develop new systems.
        In 2020, Worldline bought French rival Ingenico for
around 7.8 billion euros, and the company said earlier this year
that it planned more takeover deals.
    "This operation is fully in line with our strategy to
further expand our merchant services activities towards the
south of Europe and in particular in Italy, a highly attractive
and strategic market for Worldline where we intend to continue
leveraging our footprint built last year through the acquisition
of Axepta Italy early 2022 and the set-up of the Worldline MS
Italy joint venture," said Worldline CEO Gilles Grapinet.
    Worldline said the Banco Desio deal was expected to close in
the first quarter of 2023 and would bring in extra revenue of
around 15 million euros within the first year.
    ($1 = 1.0058 euros)
 (Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta; Editing by Himani Sarkar and
Sherry Jacob-Phillips)
 ((sudip.kargupta@thomsonreuters.com;))