FIS and Global Payments announced a couple of major concurrent deals. FIS entered into a definitive agreement to acquire 100% of Global Payments’ Issuer Solutions business for an enterprise value of $13.5 billion, or a net purchase price of $12 billion including $1.5 billion of anticipated net present value of tax assets. And FIS entered into a definitive agreement to sell its stake in Worldpay to Global Payments for $6.6 billion in pre-tax value.
Issuer Solutions is a global market leader in credit processing, with clients in 75+ countries. The business processes over 40 billion transactions annually and maintains strong partnerships with over 170 financial institutions and corporations.
Issue Solutions Deal
The acquisition adds a strong product suite in credit processing, fraud, loyalty, and other value-added services to FIS’ portfolio of debit processing, network services, payments processing, loyalty solutions, and AR/AP banking services, setting up an end-to-end offering for financial institutions and corporates.
This acquisition is expected to be accretive to adjusted EBITDA margins, adjusted EPS, and adjusted Free Cash Flow. FIS expects to generate over $500 million in incremental adjusted Free Cash Flow in the first 12 months after the transaction’s closing.
This acquisition is expected to deliver $45 million in incremental revenue synergies within three years, with over $125 million of revenue synergies longer-term, and more than $150 million in net EBITDA synergies within three years.
FIS and Global Payments have established a long-term collaboration and commercial agreements.
The acquisition of Issuer Solutions for a net purchase price of $12 billion (total value of $13.5 billion, excluding $1.5 billion of anticipated net present value of tax assets) represents a multiple of approximately 9x expected 2025 synergized EBITDA.
FIS will fund the acquisition through a combination of $8 billion of new debt and the value from selling its minority stake in Worldpay. Following the closing of the transactions, the Company expects pro forma gross leverage to be approximately 3.4x, with deleveraging to its target gross leverage of 2.8x within 18 months.
This deal is expected to close in the first half of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals, the closing of the Worldpay transaction, and other closing conditions.
Worldpay Deal
The sale of 45% of Worldpay for $6.6 billion represents approximately 10.5 times expected 2025 EBITDA, a premium to the 9.8x valuation of FIS’ February 2024 sale of its 55% stake in Worldpay.
This deal is expected to close in the first half of 2026, subject to regulatory approvals, the closing of the Issuer Solutions transaction, and other closing conditions.
KEY QUOTES:
“The acquisition of Issuer Solutions is a strategic and accretive transaction that will expand FIS’ payment product suite and deepen our relationships with financial institutions and corporate clients. Issuer Solutions’ globally scaled credit processing capabilities are highly complementary to FIS’ established debit processing capabilities, strengthening our broader banking and capital markets offering.”
“We are pleased to fully monetize our Worldpay stake at an attractive valuation. The transaction enhances FIS’ financial profile and replaces our non-cash generating minority stake in Worldpay with a growing stream of recurring high-margin revenues and cash flows.”
– Stephanie Ferris, Chief Executive Officer and President of FIS
“Today marks a defining day for Global Payments and a pivotal milestone in our journey to become the worldwide partner of choice for commerce solutions. The acquisition of Worldpay and divestiture of Issuer Solutions further sharpen our strategic focus and simplify Global Payments as a pure play merchant solutions business with significantly expanded capabilities, extensive scale, greater market access and an enhanced financial profile.”
“Global Payments and Worldpay bring together highly complementary capabilities and distribution networks, creating significant opportunities for the combined business to accelerate growth, amplify investment in innovation and elevate client and partner experiences with best-in-class solutions. This transaction provides us with one of the world’s most feature rich platforms to support ecommerce and enterprise customers across key high growth geographies and verticals, while also enhancing our integrated and embedded capabilities to deliver seamless solutions to software and platform providers worldwide.”
“We could not be more excited about the future, as we bring together Global Payments and Worldpay and establish a strategic partnership with FIS. These transactions enhance our strengths, open new growth opportunities and accelerate our transformation, which we expect will drive significant value for our customers, partners, team members and shareholders.”
– Cameron Bready, chief executive officer of Global Payments
“We are excited to enter this next phase of Worldpay’s evolution by uniting with Global Payments to create something special in the payments industry. Our solutions will enhance value for our customers, especially for Worldpay’s small and medium-sized businesses. The combination of Global Payments and Worldpay brings together two strong teams with similar histories, a shared culture of innovation and deep payments expertise. I am thrilled about the new opportunities this transaction brings for both of our businesses and our team members worldwide.”
– Charles Drucker, chief executive officer at Worldpay
