Nexi stock on a roller coaster at Piazza Affari after the announcement of the possible merger with Nets. The company led by Paolo Bertoluzzo has made it known that it has started an exclusive negotiation period with the Danish group of Nets electronic payments in order to reach, within the next 10 days, a possible binding agreement for a merger operation between the two groups.
According to what can be read in the company's note, the integration of Nexi with the Nets group would be part of the context of the rapid consolidation underway at an international and European level in the digital payments sector, already envisaged in the context of the announced transaction merger with Sia three weeks ago. From wedding between Nexi and Nets in fact, a payment giant could be born capable of keeping up with the European leader in the Worldline sector, which has recently taken over the French company Ingenico.
Based on the provisions, the transaction should be structured as a merger of Nets into Nexi and would imply a valuation of the two companies with an 'iso-multiple' approach, i.e. on the basis of the same multiple calculated on the Ebitda expected for 2020. The The operation - underlines the press release - will be carried out entirely through a stock exchange, with long-term lock-up commitments for current Nets shareholders – including Hellman & Friedman – and does not envisage further borrowing.
Thanks to this merger the shareholders of the two companies will be able to benefit from synergies estimated at around 150 millionadditional to those already identified. Cdp Equity, which will become the reference shareholder of Nexi following the merger with Sia, "has expressed its support for the operation, in the light of the important strategic and industrial benefits that it could generate", states the note.
In 2019 Nets generated revenues of approximately 1 billion euros and a gross operating margin of 400 million.
According to Bloomberg calculations, Nets has an estimated value of about 10 billion dollars (8,6 billion euros), while Nexi together with Sia should have a market capitalization of 15,5 billion.
Nexi's announcement aroused uproar in the stock market. At the start, the stock entered the volatility auction after a drop of 4,89%. Around 10.30 it recovered part of the decline and dropped 0,45% to 13,13 euros.
