Report: Global Payments Aims to Acquire Takepayments

Global Payments, a U.S.-based payment processing company, is reportedly nearing a deal to acquire Takepayments, a British payment services provider, in a move to expand its business abroad.

The transaction is expected to value Takepayments at over $250 million, although the details of the deal are still being worked out, Reuters reported Tuesday (Feb. 13), citing unnamed sources. Global Payments emerged as the preferred bidder in the sale process, beating out other interested parties.

Global Payments did not immediately reply to PYMNTS’ request for comment.

Takepayments, formerly known as Payzone UK, has experienced steady growth in recent years, the report said. According to filings with Companies House, the company saw its turnover increase from £40.8 million (about $51.4 million) in 2021 to £52.7 million (about $66.3 million) in 2022.

The firm uses Barclays as its preferred partner for providing services to merchants.

Global Payments denied a media report of other acquisition talks in December. In that case, Bloomberg reported Dec. 14 that the company was working with an adviser to assess the feasibility of a potential deal with Shift4 Payments, a provider of end-to-end commerce solutions headquartered in Allentown, Pennsylvania.

Reached by PYMNTS for comment about that report, a Global Payments spokesperson said at the time: “Although we typically do not respond to market speculation or rumors, we are not in discussions with Shift4 regarding any type of strategic transaction.”

In August 2022, Global Payments acquired payment technology and acquiring solutions firm EVO Payments for $4 billion.

Global Payments said at the time that the acquisition of EVO Payments would increase its target addressable markets, expand its presence into new parts of the world, and add accounts receivable (AR) software with broad third-party acceptance to its business-to-business (B2B) software and payment solutions.

That deal brought Global Payments’ offerings to new countries, including Poland, Germany, Chile and Greece.

“The acquisition of EVO is highly complementary to our technology-enabled strategy and provides meaningful opportunities to increase scale in our business globally,” Cameron Bready, who was president and chief operating officer at the time and is now president and CEO of Global Payments, said when announcing the transaction.