TSYS completes purchase of TransFirst
Credit-card and payments processor TSYS said Friday it has completed its $2.35 billion purchase of TransFirst, a privately owned firm that serves merchants across the U.S., making it the largest acquisition in the history of the Columbus-based firm.
TSYS bought the company from San Francisco-based investment firm Vista Equity Partners. The deal, which was announced in late January, will make TSYS the sixth-largest merchant acquirer in the U.S. in terms of revenue, while it will be the third-largest integrated payments provider in the nation, the firm said.
The Columbus company said John Shlonsky, president and chief executive officer of Hauppauge, N.Y.-based TransFirst, will continue to lead the operation as a senior executive vice president with TSYS. He will report to Pam Joseph, who becomes TSYS president and chief operating officer in May.
TransFirst supports more than 1,300 business “partners,” the company said, including software vendors, health care, non-profit entities, banks, associations and online commerce. The combined TSYS and TransFirst operation will handle about 645,000 merchant outlets in the U.S., comprised of $117 billion in transaction volume.
“The acquisition of TransFirst, gives us the technology, scale, and distribution capabilities that propel us to a leadership position within merchant acquiring similar to the scale and strength we have in issuer processing and prepaid program management,” TSYS chairman, president and CEO Troy Woods said in a statement. “Our position and strength in these three key areas of payments further diversifies our business and makes TSYS unique among its peers.”
“Moving forward from the excitement of this day, and becoming a part of TSYS, our mission is to leverage our joint capabilities and products seamlessly, so our customers are able to rely on just one provider for their processing services,” Shlonsky said in a statement.
TSYS said details surrounding the acquisition will be discussed on its analyst conference call following the release of its first-quarter earnings report on April 26.
The TransFirst deal easily surpasses the previous largest corporate purchase by TSYS — the $1.4 billion buyout in 2013 of Austin, Texas-based NetSpend, a company that markets and sells prepaid cards, often for those with no bank accounts.
Aside from its New York presence, TransFirst also has facilities in Broomfield, Colo., Aurora, Colo., Franklin, Tenn., and Cypress, Calif. Heading into the acquisition, its workforce was about 1,000. TSYS has about 10,500 employees worldwide, with about 4,800 of those in Columbus.
This story was originally published April 1, 2016 at 4:19 PM with the headline "TSYS completes purchase of TransFirst."