Advent International, ATP and Bain Capital have reached an agreement to buy Nets from the existing shareholders, a group of 186 primarily Danish and Norwegian banks, for DKK17bn ($3.1bn) cash.
The private-equity consortium said that the takeover is pending receipt of concerned regulators/confirmations and is likely to conclude during the second quarter of 2014.
Nets chairman Peter Lybecker said that the agreement was reached based on an extensive review of Nets’ strategic alternatives, which pointed out the need for a new owner with the expertise, commitment and financial resources to develop the business in a rapidly changing payments industry.
Under the terms of the agreement, there will be no change to the existing regulation of Nets, and the firm will continue to be supervised by the respective Danish, Norwegian and Finnish FSAs and competition authorities.
Furthermore, the requirements for Nets pertaining to data protection are unaffected by the ownership change and the Consortium will implement additional measures to safeguard Nets’ data privacy profile.
Headquartered in Copenhagen, Nets was formed in 1968 and manages payments in the five Nordic countries including Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden and Estonia with the help of 2,600 employees.
During 2013, the company handled more than six billion card transactions supporting more than 33 million payment cards and over 500,000 merchants in the Nordics.
JPMorgan has been appointed to act as financial advisor to the board of directors of Nets, while UBS, MHS Corporate Finance and Infima acted as financial advisors to the private-equity consortium.