Vantiv To Buy Mercury Payment Systems For $1.65 Bln

(RTTNews) - Payment processing services provider Vantiv, Inc. (VNTV) said Monday that it has signed agreement to buy Mercury Payment Systems, LLC for an aggregate price of $1.65 billion.

Mercury, which is currently majority-owned by Silver Lake, is a payment technology and service leader whose solutions are embedded into point-of-sale software applications and brought to market through their dealer and developer partners.

The deal is expected to close in the second quarter of 2014.

Vantiv said the acquisition of Mercury will accelerate its growth in the integrated payments space, which is expected to increase significantly over the next several years to potentially represent over 30% of total payments volume by 2017.

Mercury features an extensive network of more than 3,000 point-of-sale software developers and dealers that serve small and medium-sized businesses across the U.S. and Canada. In 2013, Mercury generated net revenue of $237 million, growing by 17% year-over-year.

Vantiv expects the deal to add one to two percentage points to its net revenue growth per year. The deal is expected to be modestly accretive to Vantiv's adjusted earnings per share in 2014, with accelerating accretion in 2015.

As a result of the deal, Mercury is suspending activities related to its proposed initial public offering and, in connection with the consummation of the deal, will withdraw its registration statement previously filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.