LONDON (ShareCast) - (Sharecast News) - French payment services company Worldline has agreed to buy rival Ingenico in a €7.8bn deal.
Under the terms of the deal, Ingenico shareholders will receive 11 Worldline shares and €160.5 in cash for every seven of their shares. Following completion of the transaction, Worldline shareholders would own around 65% of the combined entity, while Ingenico shareholders would own the rest.

Worldline chairman and chief executive Gilles Grapinet said: "Together we create the European world-class leader in digital payments. We deeply respect Ingenico and its team for the deep business repositioning of their company realise over the last years into one of the largest European payment service providers with outstanding global positions in online payments and merchant acquiring.

"We have been impressed by the strong improvement in performance realized over the last 18 months under the leadership of Nicolas Huss, as well as by the in-depth transformation initiated at the same time of their global leading payment terminal business, resulting in increased efficiency, more autonomy and a new strategic roadmap."

The deal is expected to result in around €250m of run-rate synergies in 2024 and be immediately accretive to earnings per share.

Worldline is majority-owned by Atos.

At 1030 GMT, Ingenico shares were up 10.7% at €116.45 and Worldline shares were 4.6% lower at €60.80.

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