Worldpay Floats Largest London IPO Of The Year

Worldpay has made its debut on the London Stock Exchange in what is the U.K.’s largest IPO of the year. The payments processing firm is looking at a market cap of £4.8 billion ($7.3 billion) on £2.40 a share ($3.66). That puts Worldpay’s share price squarely in the middle of its initial £2.25 to £2.60 range.

That price was up 6 percent after conditional trading — City institutions run at trading the stock ahead of open trading.

The road to IPO has been interesting and varied for Worldpay, as the company found itself involved in a complex multi-party bidding war this summer. Wirecard, Blackstone, Hellman & Friedman, Ingenico and JPMorgan’s private equity arm were all in on the action making offers, and the firm was valued at the time at about $9 billion.

“Today’s announcement is a significant milestone for Worldpay,” said Chief Executive Philip Jansen, according to The Telegraph. “We are proud to be a leader in global payments with a clear strategy for continued growth as a listed company.”

“We have already invested over £1 billion in our technology, people and capabilities, helping us to become an advanced and sophisticated technology-led organization with great potential.”

Worldpay processes around £370 billion ($564 billion) in payments each year, from about 400,000 merchants. It also handles about 40 percent of European Web transactions. The firm brought in a profit of £765 million ($1.2 billion) on revenues of £3.6 billion ($5.5 billion). In the first half of 2015, sales were up 13 percent.

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