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Elavon will acquire the payments platform to help its business customers grow as the global economy becomes more digital.
Today (18 November), UK software firm Sage announced that it would sell its payments arm to US company Elavon.
Sage Pay, which was founded in 2001 and is a competitor to payments giants Stripe and PayPal, has more than 55,000 business partners including Heatons and Topaz. The payments platform can be integrated with other services including Recurly, EggBasket and OpenCart.
In a statement, Elavon said that the acquisition was part of its strategy to help business customers grow as the global economy becomes more digital, and as businesses look to streamline their operations with software that includes payments capabilities.
Extending Elavon’s market share
Elavon is a global payments company with more than 4,300 employees working across 10 countries, including Ireland. It’s a subsidiary of US Bancorp and provides businesses with the technology to accept payments from customers in retail stores and online.
Elavon is currently the fourth-largest merchant acquirer in Europe, with an integrated international processing platform that allows them to do business in many countries and currencies.
The acquisition of Sage Pay will extend Elavon’s market share in the UK and Ireland, the company said, particularly for small and medium-sized enterprises where Sage Pay has already established itself in that market.
Declan Lynch, CEO of Elavon Financial Services, said: “We are thrilled to bring the talents and capabilities of Sage Pay employees to Elavon, where they will be an integral part of our company that is investing in the future.”
Hannah Fitzsimons, president and general manager of Elavon Merchant Services in Europe, added: “This acquisition brings tremendous talent and leading technology to Elavon, which can be leveraged across the European market.”
Sage’s focus on SaaS
Elavon will pay around €270m for Sage Pay, which reported revenues of €48m and profits of €17.5m in 2018.
Earlier this year, Sage Group also agreed to sell its US payroll outsourcing business for €91m as part of the company’s plan to focus on subscription services by moving its products to the cloud.
Sage CEO Steve Hare said: “Our vision of becoming a great software-as-a-service company for customers and colleagues alike means we will continue to focus on serving small and medium-sized customers with subscription software solutions for accounting and financials, and people and payroll.
“Payments and banking services remain an integral part of Sage’s value proposition and we will deliver them through our growing network of partnerships, including Elavon.”
The deal is due to be completed in the second quarter of 2020, subject to the usual regulatory approvals.
