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Situational awareness: Axios' Katie Peralta Soloff offers these ideas on how you can support western North Carolina communities.

Global Payments, which built itself into a $25 billion company with the help of some 40-plus deals since its spinoff in 2001, is done with big buys and is looking to divest a "handful" of properties.

Why it matters: The payments company's recent reorganization closes a major exit path for fintechs and funds.

What's happening: Shares of Global Payments were down nearly 9% last week, after the company pointed to its new plans and provided lower than expected revenue guidance for 2025.

Flashback: Since the spinout from National Data Corp., Global Payments has regularly inked large deals.

In 2023, it closed its acquisition of EVO Payments, whose investors included Madison Dearborn Partners, with the aim of expanding in new geographies and growing its B2B software suite. The deal was valued at $4 billion.

In 2021, it acquired property-management company Zego from Vista Equity Partners for about $925 million. Eight Roads- and Great Hill Partners-backed MineralTree was acquired that same year for about $500 million.

In 2019, it merged with publicly traded Total System Services in a deal then valued around $21.5 billion.

In 2018, It acquired Sicom, a software provider to restaurants, for about $415 million from LLR Partners. That same year, it bought AdvancedMD from Marlin Equity Partners for $700 million.

It also acquired Active Network from Vista in 2017 for about $1.2 billion.

Between the lines: "I think as we grew fairly aggressively over that long period of time, I think we lost some of our focus," CEO Cameron Bready told Axios last week following the company's investor day. "The whole operating model of the company was oriented around 'We want to grow aggressively through M&A.'"

Bready became CEO of the company in June 2023 and began what he calls a "holistic review" of the business this year. Since then, the company has been emphasizing its focus on integrating its existing buys and cutting out overlapping functions from its siloed operations.

"It sets us up for, in my view, the next decade of growth, which is largely going to be organic in nature," he says.

That rules out bigger M&A deals, though the company may still pursue what Bready describes as tuck-in acquisitions. 

So far under his watch, the company acquired Takepayments for a reported $250 million and point-of-sale tech company Yazara, which previously raised $2.5 million.

The big picture: Bready says the company is exploring a "handful" of divestitures. 

It's looking at selling businesses it previously bought as well as home-grown lines.

"They are markets that we are operating in today that are sub-scale, where I don't see a realistic path in the near term for us to be a scaled player," he said, noting that's largely referring to geographies, though that's also the case in some industry-focused areas.

Among the names up for sale is reportedly AdvancedMD, which focuses on software and payments for physicians, per Fortune. A spokesperson for the company declined to comment on the report.

The big picture: This comes as multiple companies have been divesting of assets after a M&A payments bonanza that started in 2019. 

FIS sold a majority stake in Worldpay to GTCR last year, valuing the merchant services company up to $18.5 billion, after it bought the business for about $43 billion in 2019.

The intrigue: Some have suggested a similar shakeup at Global Payments might be good medicine, with Mizuho's Dan Dolev saying he believes the company should undo its Total System (TSYS) tie-up. 

At the company's investor day, Bready said the review conducted earlier this year only "reinforced the strategic value" of the TSYS business. Though "we  will continue to explore and evaluate options for the Issuer business that may serve to achieve our strategic objectives," he said.

Global Payments steps back from big M&A

an illustration of colorful rectangles, cutouts of a 100 dollar bill, and business deal related photographs

Private equity firm TPG is investing heavily in wealth management, striking deals to acquire minority stakes in multiple firms. 

Why it's the BFD: Wealth managers are drawing increased interest from PE firms looking for steady cash flows and the opportunity to swallow up smaller rivals.

Driving the news: Reuters reported over the weekend that TPG became the frontrunner for a $2 billion stake in Creative Planning that would value the wealth manager at more than $15 billion.

Between the lines: The stake in Creative Planning drew interest from other PE firms, including Permira, according to the report.

General Atlantic also owns a minority stake in the wealth manager, which it acquired in 2020.

Context: With over $300 billion in AUM, Creative Planning offers wealth management, tax planning, estate planning, and insurance, among other services.

Last year, the firm agreed to acquire Goldman Sachs' personal finance management business after the bank sought to refocus efforts on high net-worth clients.

Separately, the private equity firm acquired a minority stake last week in Homrich Berg, a wealth manager with over $18 billion in AUM.

Flashback: TPG is no stranger to the wealth management industry. 

In 2005, it teamed up with Hellman & Friedman to acquire a majority stake in LPL Financial and took the firm public in 2010.

TPG's wealth management play

an illustration of a calculator containing a 100 dollar bill in the window surrounded by circles 

🪙 Robinhood is weighing a stablecoin launch, possibly joining Revolut and others. (Bloomberg)

🇪🇺 Qonto will open offices in Austria, Belgium, Portugal and the Netherlands as part of a European expansion. (Finextra)

🏠 VCs expect a surge in startups offering lower-rate mortgages and other loans after the Federal Reserve cut rates. (TechCrunch)

🇨🇳 PayPal is launching a cross-border payments platform in China. (PYMNTS)

Credit score

Illustration of an exam answer sheet with the words "credit score" hand written in red ink.

• Findable, a Norwegian startup automating property sales paperwork, raised €9m ($10.05m) in Series A funding. Point Nine led and was joined by Kompas VC, Construct Venture and Lake Eight. Go deeper

• RD Technologies, a Hong Kong-based crypto payments company founded by the ex-chief executive of the city's de facto central bank, raised $7.8m from investors including HongShan, Hivemind Capital Partners and Aptos Labs. Go deeper

• Pinegrove Capital Partners completed its $340m purchase of SVB Capital from bankrupt SVB Financial Group. Go deeper

• New Mountain Capital agreed to buy a majority stake in Salute Holdings, a Franklin, Wis., provider of asset management services for the data center industry, from LLR Partners, which retains a minority stake. saluteinc.com

• Carmoola, a UK-based auto finance startup, secured a £100m ($133.8m) debt deal with NatWest. Go deeper

• Chime, the SF-based neobank, has tapped Morgan Stanley to handle its 2025 IPO. Go deeper

• Marsh McLennan (NYSE: MMC) agreed to buy McGriff Insurance Services, a provider of insurance broking and risk management services, for $7.75b from TIH, a portfolio company of Stone Point Capital, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice and Mubadala. Go deeper

• Rightmove (LSE: RMV), a British online real estate portal, received its fourth takeover bid from REA Group (ASX: REA), owned by Rupert Murdoch. This one is worth $8.3b, with Rightmove recently rejecting an $8.1b offer. Go deeper

• Matrixport, a Singaporean crypto financial services firm valued at over $1.5b by VCs, acquired Crypto Finance, a Swiss crypto asset manager that raised $30m from firms including Lingfeng Capital. Go deeper

Deals!

• Andy Mielczarek, co-founder and CEO of Chetwood Financial, will step down. Go deeper

• Nitin Pulyani, former PhonePe director, joined Cashfree Payments as SVP and head of product. Go deeper

• Bobby Beniers left Polychain Capital to join CoinFund. Go deeper

• Ryan VanGrack, a former legal exec at Citadel, joined Coinbase as vice president of litigation. Go deeper

It's Personnel

 👋 @Lucinda is hanging around Messari's Mainnet conference.

️ 🤢 @Ryan is disgusted by the Eagles.

Thanks to George Moriarty and Rob Reinalda for today's edits.

And thanks to you for reading this edition of Fintech Deals. Please tell your fintech friends and aspiring payment processors about this newsletter. They can sign up here.

September 30, 2024

1 big thing: Global Payments steps back from big M&A