Kirkland Advises Worldpay and GTCR on Sale of Worldpay to Global Payments for $24.25B in Conjunction with Transformative Three-Way Transaction
Kirkland & Ellis represents Worldpay and GTCR, which announced today the signing of a definitive agreement to sell Worldpay, a global leader in merchant acquiring and payments processing, to Global Payments (NYSE: GPN) for $24.25 billion as part of a transformative three-way transaction. In January 2024, GTCR acquired a 55% majority stake in Worldpay from FIS® (NYSE: FIS), a global leader in financial services technology. FIS retained the remaining 45% as part of the transaction. Under the terms of the sale agreement announced today, Global Payments will acquire Worldpay from GTCR and FIS for $24.25 billion of cash and stock, while FIS will acquire Global Payments' Issuer Solutions business, at an enterprise value of $13.5 billion.
Global Payments and Worldpay provide highly complementary payments, software and commerce enablement solutions to merchants and partners worldwide. On a combined basis, the company will have extensive global reach and scale, serving more than six million customers and enabling approximately 94 billion transactions and $3.7 trillion in volume across more than 175 countries. The transactions are subject to receipt of required regulatory approvals and other customary closing conditions and expected to close in the first half of 2026.
Read more in GTCR’s press release
Read more in Global Payments’ press release
The Kirkland team included corporate lawyers Ted Frankel, Daniel Guerin, Ziyad Ziyadzade and Francesco Castaldi; debt finance lawyer Thomas Dobleman; capital markets lawyers Sharon Freiman, Rachel Sheridan and Asher Qazi; tax lawyers Mike Carew, Adam Kool, Nicholas Warther, Peter Abbott and Anthony Antioch; antitrust & competition lawyers Matt Reilly, Steve Mohr, Alasdair Balfour, Sion Davies, Thomas Wilson, Jack Coles and Stephanie Greco; investment funds lawyers Mike Pergler and Adam Skinner; technology & IP transactions lawyer Aaron Lorber and Todd Herst; employment & labor lawyer Jackie Heffernan; employee benefits lawyer Alexandra Mihalas; executive compensation lawyer Michael Krasnovsky; real estate lawyer John Goldman; environmental transactions lawyer Michelle DeMaio; and international trade & national security lawyers Ivan Schlager and Daniel Gerkin.
