(Reuters) -Payments provider Network International confirmed on Thursday it had received a preliminary takeover bid from a consortium of CVC Capital Partners and Francisco Partners Funds, sending its shares up 25%.
Network International, which is the largest payment processing firm across the Middle East and Africa and had a market value of 1.29 billion pounds ($1.62 billion) as of last close, said discussions with the consortium were ongoing.
The company had received approaches from several suitors in recent months, including CVC, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. Bloomberg was first to report news of CVC’s bid.
Network International has been in talks with advisers to devise options to rally demand for its shares, one of the people said, and announced a $100 million share buy-back programme last year in a bid to return value to shareholders.
The company’s shares have struggled to recover since 2020, when investors became concerned about its acquisition of African rival DPO Group over links with Wirecard, the German payments giant that imploded due to an accounting scandal.
The company said a review had found no evidence of wrongdoing by DPO and completed the acquisition in 2021.
Founded in 1994 as a subsidiary of Emirates Bank, now known as Emirates NBD, Network International serves over 154,000 merchants and 200 financial institutions, according to information on its website.
($1 = 0.7983 pounds)
(Reporting by Hadeel Al Sayegh, Pablo Mayo Cerqueiro and Radhika Anilkumar; Editing by Sriraj Kalluvila, Elisa Martinuzzi and Susan Fenton)