European Commission Greenlights Nexi’s Acquisition Of Nets

The European Commission (EC) has granted an unconditional authorization for the $9.28 billion ( €7.8 billion) acquisition of Denmark’s Nets by Italy’s Nexi, according to an EC press release on Tuesday (March 9).

The EC came to the conclusion that the acquisition would not compromise competition. The two rivals offer competing but complementary solutions: Nets specializes in merchant acquiring services, point-of-sale (POS) terminals and card processing and Nexi provides payment services for merchants, cardholders and banks. 

The combined entity would become Europe’s largest payments firm by volume, with end-to-end payments capabilities and expanded products and services. The tie-up also brings services to a larger, more diversified region and delivers expansive eCommerce offerings.

The deal between the two payments giants was announced in November 2020, a few weeks following Nexi’s purchase of SIA for €4.6 billion in shares. Nets shareholders will receive 406.6 million new Nexi shares, initially resulting in 39 percent of the combined entity.

“We are creating a stronger Nexi … and a more resilient Nexi,” Nexi CEO Paolo Bertoluzzo told analysts in November regarding the deal with Nets, per Reuters. Bertoluzzo, who will head the new entity, pointed to benefits like market and client diversification, scale and eCommerce exposure.

At the time, Nexi had expected to close the Nets deal in the second quarter of this year and SIA in the third quarter. The U.S. group Global Payments was aiming to acquire Nets before Nexi, but got cold feet about purchasing an overseas payments firm, a source told Reuters. 

The merger deal announced in November 2020 would bring a large payments platform to the pan-European market. Nets was acquired in 2017 by Hellman & Friedman and has since grown its core payments business. Nets’ mergers and acquisitions last year included Concardis Payment Group, Dotpay/eCard, P24 and PeP.

Mastercard acquired Nets’ corporate services division earlier this month for €2.9 billion. The acquisition will support account-to-account capabilities tied to instant payment infrastructure, including clearing, settlement, bill payment and e-invoicing.