Mastercard is seeking to sell the real-time payments unit that it acquired from Denmark’s Nets Group in 2019 for $3.2bn in a move that would unwind its largest ever takeover deal, according to Financial Times.
The credit card giant has tapped investment bankers to lead a sale of the business that could garner interest from private equity groups, according to people familiar with the matter.
Mastercard is likely to achieve a far lower price than what it paid for the asset, some of the people said.
The business unit, which offers payments between accounts in Europe, generates about $370mn of annual revenues and around $100mn of earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortisation, according to one of the people.
Mastercard had acquired the business in a bid to shift away from being a pure card payments company towards a “multi-rail” payments group serving merchants, banks and governments, a senior company executive told the FT at the time of the deal.
“Half of payments happen directly from one bank account to another, and for our bank partners, we want to be a one-stop shop for all payments,” Michael Miebach, now chief executive and then Mastercard’s chief product officer, told the FT in 2019. However, the business unit has acted as a drag on Mastercard’s growth.
Banking 4.0 – „how was the experience for you”
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