Banco Sabadell Will Sell Its Payments Business To Italy’s Nexi

Banco Sabadell of Spain sold an 80% stake in its payments unit, Paycomet, to the Italian company Nexi for €280 million and signed a 10-year exclusive distribution deal with Nexi.

Nexi will pay an up-front cash payment of €280 million, which is equal to the asset’s total enterprise value of €350 million. For at least three years, the bank will keep a 20% stake.

The initial term of the exclusive distribution agreement is 10 years, and it could be renewed twice for another 5 years each time.

With this deal, Nexi will have a strong position in Spain, which has the fourth largest economy in the eurozone. By December 2022, the Italian company will have more than 380k merchants and about €48 billion worth of transactions. The business of acquiring merchants is expected to bring in about €30 million in Ebitda.

Paolo Bertoluzzo, CEO, Nexi, says:

“With this partnership, we enter Spain from a strong position, a market that we have always considered highly attractive for digital payments with great potential for further profitable and sustainable long-term growth, quite similar to Italy.”

Carlos Ventura, Banco Sabadell’s General Manager of Business Banking and Network, adds:

“This agreement brings economies of scale and greater cost efficiency to our value proposition, as well as higher quality technological solutions and specialisation, so that we can continue to improve our services for our customers.”