Banco Sabadell has signed a strategic agreement with Nexi, a European leader in digital payments. This alliance, which will be for a renewable 10-year period, ratifies Banco Sabadell’s commitment to continue improving the value proposition and customer experience in a key product for the corporate, business, and self-employed segments, through a larger and more innovative offer.
This transaction involves the acquisition by Nexi of 80% of Paycomet, Sabadell’s payments subsidiary, for 280 million euros. The bank will retain a 20% stake for at least three years, whilst aligning interests with its new industrial partner. After that period, Banco Sabadell will have the option to sell its 20% stake and, as such, the total transaction amount has been fixed at 350 million euros and may be increased depending on the achievement of objectives.
The General Manager of Business Banking & Network at Banco Sabadell, Carlos Ventura, has stated that “this agreement brings economies of scale and greater cost efficiency to our value proposition, as well as higher quality technological solutions and specialization, so that we can continue to improve our services for our customers.”
Paolo Bertoluzzo, CEO of Nexi, said: “We are very proud to have been chosen by Banco Sabadell, the best possible Spanish strategic partner, for our deep product and technology capabilities. With this partnership we enter, from a strong position, Spain, 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. This initiative, which expands our growth opportunities further, is a very important step ahead in our strategy as a leading European PayTech combining at best European scale and market and customer proximity. The partnership with Banco Sabadell will allow us to be deeply entrenched in the market with a partner that fully shares our ambition to accelerate the development of Spanish digital payments further through product and commercial innovation. We have strong confidence in the combined capabilities of our teams and their willingness to drive strong growth together”.
The transaction, subject to the corresponding approvals, will also generate a positive impact of 14 bps on Banco Sabadell’s fully-loaded CET1 capital ratio upon closing, which is expected to take place in the fourth quarter of 2023. This transaction is also expected to contribute positively to the income statement right from the first year.
The strategic alliance signed today is the result of a competitive process in which a detailed analysis of the capabilities of the various potential partners was the decisive factor.
