Global Payments in Atlanta announced a bold realignment of its business strategy, agreeing to divest Issuer Solutions and buy Worldpay.
The merchant services provider said in a press release that it will sell Issuer Solutions to FIS for $13.5 billion. In a separate transaction, it will buy Worldpay from GTCR and FIS for $22.7 billion. The deals are expected to close in the first half of 2026.
With the acquisition of Worldpay, Global Payments will emerge as one of the biggest global merchant-focused payment providers. The company will serve over 6 million customers, enable 94 billion transactions, and process $3.7 trillion in volume annually across more than 175 countries.
CEO Cameron Bready called it “a defining day” for the company, emphasizing that the deals streamline Global Payments’ strategy and significantly expand its global footprint, especially across high-growth sectors like e-commerce and embedded payments.
The deals “further sharpen our strategic focus,” Bready said in the release. Buying Worldpay “provides us with one of the world’s most feature-rich platforms to support e-commerce and enterprise customers across key high-growth geographies and verticals.”
The divestiture to FIS represents a 12.3x adjusted EBITDA multiple, while the Worldpay acquisition comes in at a net multiple of 8.5x when considering anticipated cost synergies. The transactions also initiates a strategic partnership with FIS.
Post-deal, Global Payments is expected to achieve $12.5 billion in pro forma adjusted net revenue and $6.5 billion in adjusted EBITDA in 2025, including synergy effects.
Global Payments projects $600 million in run-rate cost synergies and at least $200 million in revenue synergies within three years. The deal is expected to be modestly accretive in year one, with mid- to high-single-digit accretion thereafter.
Financing for the deal will involve proceeds from the Issuer Solutions sale, new debt issuance of $7.7 billion, and shares issued to GTCR at $97 a share, or about 15% of Global Payments’ equity on a pro forma basis.