Report: Barclays in Advanced Talks to Sell Stake in Payments Business

Barclays is reportedly in advanced talks to sell a stake in its payments business to Brookfield Asset Management.

An announcement of a deal could come this week, though no final agreement has been reached and there could be a delay, Bloomberg reported Tuesday (April 15).

A spokesperson for Barclays said in the report: “We are exploring a number of options for investment in our market-leading merchant acquiring business, including strategic partnerships. We will provide any further updates in due course.”

The talks come at a time when Barclays has been shedding non-core businesses — including its German consumer finance division and a portfolio of Italian mortgages — and when many of its European rivals have been doing the same, according to the report.

Brookfield Asset Management purchased Middle Eastern payments processor Network International Holdings in 2024 and hired former Worldpay CEO Ron Kalifa as vice chair and head of financial infrastructure investments in 2023, per the report.

It was reported in September that Brookfield had walked away from bidding on Barclays’ merchant payments unit due to the companies’ differing views on that business’ valuation and because negotiations had been complicated by the takeover of Takepayments, one of Barclays’ partners in payments.

Barclays announced in December 2023 that it was weighing its options for the payments business and had marked down its value.

When Brookfield hired Kalifa in 2023, the company said he would oversee its push into the financial infrastructure space.

Kalifa was chair of Network International at the time and spent more than a decade leading Worldpay.

The Financial Times reported at the time that Brookfield — which had $850 billion in assets under management at the time and was known primarily in the real estate sector — was hoping to capitalize on the pressure facing banks and governments to upgrade their financial systems.

In February 2024, Brookfield said in a press release that it had committed $5 billion of investments within the technology-enabled payments space, including its acquisitions of Network International and Magnati.

“As part of our thesis on the digitalization of the global economy, this strategy will seek mature, high-quality companies that are integral components of financial infrastructure and will leverage our expertise in growing businesses through operational value creation,” the company said in the release.