Vista Considers Sale of Stake in $10 Billion Fintech Giant

(Bloomberg) -- Vista Equity Partners is considering the potential sale of a stake in Finastra in a deal that could value the financial technology company at more than $10 billion including debt, people familiar with the matter said.

Billionaire Robert F. Smith’s buyout firm is working with Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to gauge interest from potential buyers, according to the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. Vista is considering selling as much as a 50% stake in London-based Finastra, one of the people said.

Financial technology companies in Europe, which provide services such as handling electronic money transfers, are enjoying a dose of market euphoria. That’s partly because investors are seeking alternatives to traditional European banks, many of which are still struggling to find their footing a decade after the financial crisis. Payment processor Adyen NV has more than doubled in value since it began trading in Amsterdam in mid-2018.

Vista bought Canadian financial services provider DH Corp. for C$2.7 billion ($2 billion) in 2017. It then combined the business with its Misys unit, a U.K. company it took private in 2012, to create Finastra. The merged entity serves about 90 of the top 100 banks globally with its systems for payments, retail banking, mortgage lending and treasury desks.

A formal sale process hasn’t started, and there’s no certainty the deliberations will lead to a transaction, the people said. Representatives for Vista, Goldman Sachs and Finastra declined to comment.

Finastra has $1.9 billion in annual revenue and more than 10,000 employees, according to its website. The company has more than $6 billion of debt, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

--With assistance from Crystal Tse, Jan-Henrik Förster, David Hellier and Marianna Aragao.

To contact the reporters on this story: Dinesh Nair in London at dnair5@bloomberg.net;Sarah Syed in London at ssyed35@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Aaron Kirchfeld at akirchfeld@bloomberg.net, Ben Scent, Matthew Monks

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