Swiss stock exchange operator SIX is selling its card payments business to a French competitor, with implications for some 1,300 of its employees.
SIX agreed to sell the payments division to French rival Worldline for about 2.3 billion euros, the Zurich-based company said in a statement on Tuesday. The stock exchange operator had been looking to divest the division for months, as reported by finews.com.
The sale price includes a cash amount of 338 million Swiss francs as well as 49.1 million new Worldline shares. The deal will make Worldline the largest European payment-system provider, SIX said.
The planned sale had met by interest from a series of companies including First Data, private equity firm Warburg Pincus, Natixis and Danish Nets, according to media reports.
Stake Secured
SIX won’t be exiting the payments system entirely and will retain a 27 percent stake in Worldline, with two representatives on the French company’s board, it said. Ties to existing SIX payment service customers will continue, the company stressed. SIX is owned by some 130 Swiss banks.
The sale will also impact on the company’s staff, which includes more than 1,300 SIX payment employees in Switzerland, Luxembourg, Austria, Germany, Poland and other locations in Europe.
