MILAN, July 1 (Reuters Breakingviews) - French payments elephant Worldline (WLN.PA) is crossing the Alps. The $26 billion group is purchasing 80% of the merchant business of BNP Paribas’ (BNPP.PA) Italian unit BNL, valued at 220 million euros including debt. That’s 22 times the target’s expected EBITDA of nearly 10 million euros this year, higher than Worldline’s own 18 times multiple, but broadly in line with that of Italian market leader Nexi (NEXII.MI) . And, after factoring in just half of expected cost and revenue savings of 15 million euros, the metric falls to a more reasonable 15 times, the company reckons.
Worldline’s foray is a bet on Italy warming to online payments. Despite the pandemic, cash accounted for 78% of transactions in 2020. Other deals may follow. Payments businesses need scale and investment, so it makes sense for banks to offload them to a specialist. Nexi, for example, paid 1 billion euros for Intesa Sanpaolo’s (ISP.MI) payments unit in 2019. With another big player expanding in Italy, it’s a good time for lenders to sell. (By Lisa Jucca)
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