Advent International takes majority stake in Prisma Medios de Pago
Advent International, a global private equity investor, has signed a definitive agreement to acquire 51% of Argentine payments firm Prisma Medios de Pago.
Advent buys 51% stake
Prisma is formed of 14 Argentinian banks and Visa. Its existing shareholders will retain a 49% stake in the company. The transaction values the entire firm at $1.42 billion.
The firm is very big in Argentina: Prisma Medios de Pago is the number one player in merchant acquiring, offering point-of-sale rental (LaPOS), e-commerce gateway (Decidir), transaction processing and other value-added services to all types of merchants throughout the nation.
The company also tops in payments processing, in electronic bill payments (Pagomiscuentas) and is number two as an ATM operator (Banelco), serving major banks nationwide.
Outside Argentina, Prisma Medios de Pago offers issuer and merchant acquiring processing services to clients in 14 countries across Latin America.
Through its newest brand, TodoPago, the company is the second firm in peer-to-peer (P2P) transactions, offering e-wallet, mobile point-of-sale (mPOS), quick response (QR) code payment solutions and e-commerce transactions to merchants.
Advent has invested or committed $3.8 billion in eight payments companies with a combined enterprise value of $35 billion since 2008.
In addition to Prisma Medios de Pago, these businesses include Monext (France), Vantiv (US), Worldpay (UK), Nets (Denmark), Nexi (Italy), Concardis (Germany) and Clearent/FieldEdge (US).
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed at the end of January 2019.
