KKR Buys out German Payments Specialist Heidelpay
FACTS
- The US-based private equity firm KKR acquires the German group specialising in payments, Heidelpay.
- Goal: support their international development
- Amount: The amount of the transaction hasn’t been disclosed, but the Financial Times refers to a €600 million investment.
- The investment funds reached an agreement with the British funds AnaCap, which has been holding 60% of the German company since 2017.
- was founded in 2003 and based in Heidelberg. They focus on payment services for merchants, enabling their customers to accept online and mobile payments.
- Ambition:
- generate €40.5M in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation this year,
- expand their customer based in Germany,
- achieve €90M turnover, vs 15M in 2016.
CHALLENGES
- Boosting their international projects. For now, Heidelpay almost exclusively operates in German-speaking countries, ad bets on KKR’s support to boost their international projects. This group claims they intend to gain ground in Europe, and acquire new companies to achieve this goal.
- Fast-evolving industry. More mergers and acquisitions are announced on the market for payments. The ongoing transition to e-payments led valuations to increase, causing industry specialists to join forces for the sake of expanding their geographical coverage and scale.
MARKET PERSPECTIVE
- A few months ago, the investment group KKR took part in one of the largest recent operations: the acquisition of processor First Data by service provider Fiserv for $22B in shares.
- Over the past years, private equity firms have been behind multiple transactions. In February 2019, Nets welcomed a $5.3B bid from Hellman & Friedman, before it merged with Concardis, owned by Bain Capital and Advent.