Payment processing company Shift4 Payments announced Tuesday that it intends to buy the North American subsidiaries of French payment processor Worldline.
The deal is expected to net the company 140,000 new merchant customers.
The Allentown, Pennsylvania-based Shift4 expects the merger with those subsidiaries — collectively known as Bambora North America — to close in the first quarter of next year, a news release on Shift4’s website said.
Bambora’s merchant customers are largely Canadian restaurants, RBC Capital Markets analyst Dan Perlin wrote in a note to investors Wednesday.
Shift4 did not disclose financial terms of the deal in its press release. A Shift4 spokesperson did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the price for Worldline’s North American subsidiaries
Shift4 currently has more than 200,000 merchant customers, according to its website. These include major sports venues with tens of thousands of annual visitors such as MetLife Stadium, home of the New York Giants and the New York Jets football teams, and Capital One Arena, the home of the Washington Capitals hockey team and the Washington Wizards basketball team.
“This is a textbook Shift4 acquisition, delivering a massive funnel of gateway customers and payments volume to cross-sell onto our global acquiring platform,” Shift4 CEO Taylor Lauber said in the news release.
The deal “makes sense from a strategic standpoint,” analysts for the investment bank Stephens wrote in a note to investors Tuesday. The proposed Bambora merger complements Shift4’s domestic processing business, the note said.
Worldline had revenue of 60 million euros ($69.6 million) last year, and an enterprise value of 70 million euros ($81.2 million), the analysts wrote, citing the company’s public disclosures.
Shift4 is known for headline-grabbing acquisitions, most recently announcing the purchase of the Swiss payments technology firm Global Blue in July. It’s also been in the news because its executive chairman and founder, Jared Isaacman, who is also its former CEO, has been a candidate to lead NASA.
