January 03, 2012 08:00 AM Eastern Time
VeriFone Completes Acquisition of Point
SAN JOSE, Calif.--()--VeriFone Systems, Inc. (NYSE: PAY), today announced it has completed the acquisition of Point, Northern Europe’s largest provider of payment and gateway services and solutions for retailers.
“This acquisition supports our vision of offering retailers everywhere a managed service to easily accept all existing payment types, including the evolving alternative and mobile payment methods being offered by traditional card brands and new entrants such as Google, PayPal, Groupon and Isis”
Point, based in Stockholm, has operations in 11 European countries and serves a captive network encompassing almost 475,000 merchant contracts. Through this network, Point offers retailers a full range of multi-channel services and solutions, including point-of-sale technology and support, gateway services, card encryption services, and e-commerce processing.
“This acquisition supports our vision of offering retailers everywhere a managed service to easily accept all existing payment types, including the evolving alternative and mobile payment methods being offered by traditional card brands and new entrants such as Google, PayPal, Groupon and Isis,” said VeriFone CEO Douglas G. Bergeron. “The new entrants can take advantage of easy and accelerated access to VeriFone’s worldwide installation of more than 20 million merchant lanes.”
Point will operate as a VeriFone company. VeriFone intends to extend the Point platform throughout the region and beyond, with the aim of creating the world’s largest infrastructure for rapid deployment of alternative payments and NFC mobile commerce.
To finance the Point acquisition and refinance existing debt, VeriFone has executed a credit agreement for $1.5 billion led by J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith Incorporated, Wells Fargo Securities, LLC, Barclays Capital and RBC Capital Markets. The facility provides VeriFone with long-term debt capital at economical interest rates. The debt consists of 5-year Term A Loans for $918.5 million, a 5-year revolving line of credit for $350.0 million, and 7-year Term B Loans for $231.5 million. The company’s previously arranged credit facility has been repaid in full; a portion of the proceeds will also be used to repay VeriFone’s outstanding 1.375% Convertible Notes due June 2012.
