Jul 6, 2023 - Economy

GTCR agrees to buy Worldpay at an $18.5 billion valuation

Dan Primack

Illustration of a phone dispensing money. — Illustration: Annelise Capossela/Axios

Chicago-based private equity firm GTCR on Thursday announced that it will acquire a 55% stake in Worldpay from Fidelity Information Services for more than $10 billion.

Why it matters: This is the year's largest private equity deal by enterprise value ($18.5 billion), and also the largest in GTCR's 43-year history.

Details: GTCR also committed $1.25b in additional financing for acquisitions, and said that former Worldpay executive chairman and CEO Charles Drucker will return as CEO.

FIS previously signaled plans to spin off Worldpay via an IPO, but GTCR has no short-term plans to bring its new portfolio company public.

What they're saying: GTCR co-CEO Collin Roche tells Axios that any acquisitions will likely be focused on product, plus perhaps a bit of added geographic coverage. "A lot of time you see smaller businesses with innovative products but not the scale to exploit it; we have scale."

The bottom line: Perhaps the most surprising piece of this deal is that GTCR found bank financing, with Roche saying the firm employed a "fairly conversative cap structure" with leverage in the "low to mid 4's on EBITDA."

Add Axios on Google

GTCR agrees to buy Worldpay at an $18.5 billion valuation

What to read next