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Blackstone and CVC agreed to include Paysafe in a $ 9 billion valuation through a merger with a blank checking company launched by billionaire Bill Foley.
The deal triples investment by private equity firms three years after buying the UK fintech group, people briefed on the deal said.
Foley Trasimene Acquisition II, the special-purpose acquisitions company that listed on the New York Stock Exchange in August raising $ 1.47 billion, plans to announce a deal on Monday, people briefed on the transaction said.
Foley’s investment vehicle will also raise close to $ 2 billion in additional funding from institutional investors, making Paysafe’s return to public markets one of the largest blank check deals of the year.
The latest deal involving Spacs, which raises cash on the stock market and seeks to buy a private company to go public, highlights how Wall Street’s most popular financial structure is being used for ever-larger transactions.
With a valuation of $ 9 billion that includes additional debt and investments, the Paysafe deal would be right behind Churchill Capital III’s merger with MultiPlan for $ 11 billion. This week, Dyal Capital said it was in talks to merge with Owl Rock Capital and go public via a blank check vehicle in a deal that would value the two asset managers at $ 13 billion combined.
The acquisition of the Isle of Man-based digital payments specialist is the latest in a wave of deals in the sector that has seen several private equity players profiting handsomely from their stake in exponentially growing online transactions.
Milan-listed payments group Nexi recently acquired Danish rival Nets, a group controlled by acquisition groups Advent, Bain Capital and Hellman & Friedman, for € 7.8 billion. The Italian company also recently finalized a € 15 billion merger with national rival Sia. Earlier this year, French payment services group Worldline bought local rival Ingenico for 7.8 billion euros.
Paysafe, which has been dominant in handling online gambling transactions and helping retailers process customers’ online payments, was acquired by Blackstone and CVC for £ 3 billion in 2017. As part of the According to Foley’s Spac, the private equity duo would retain a stake in Paysafe, people briefed on the matter said.
Foley’s move comes as private and public online payments companies have seen a boom over the past year, as lockdowns forced by the coronavirus led millions of people around the world to buy more goods and services through from Internet.
For the billionaire investor, this is the latest in a series of Spac deals in the financial services sector. In 2018, he established a blank check company with former Blackstone negotiator Chinh Chu to acquire life insurer Fidelity & Guaranty Life for $ 1.8 billion.
Blackstone and CVC declined to comment.
