Ingenico to get a bigger slice of U.S. market

VeriFone Inc. and Hypercom Corp. agreed on April 4, 2011, to sell to Ingenico S.A. Hypercom's U.S. payment systems business, which reportedly achieved revenues of about $61 million in 2010. The aggregate purchase price is $54 million in cash, subject to post-completion price adjustments.

Pending regulatory approval, the transaction is expected to close immediately before completion of VeriFone's acquisition of Hypercom, which is expected to occur in the second half of 2011. The sale represents part of the divestiture previously described by VeriFone in a January 2011, filing in which VeriFone stated it would divest Hypercom's U.S. assets following its acquisition of Hypercom.

The proposed acquisition of Hypercom by VeriFone was disclosed in November 2010; it was approved by Hypercom shareholders in February 2011. The merger is expected to enable VeriFone to expand its business in the European market.

ViVOtech, a near field communication (NFC) solutions provider, indicated in a March 31, 2011, statement that it had also approached VeriFone about acquiring Hypercom's U.S. payment systems assets.

Benefits for VeriFone and Ingenico

"VeriFone will retain the U.S. network products operations of Hypercom, and Ingenico will take over the former Hypercom payments systems business here," stated Pete Bartolik on behalf of VeriFone Media Relations.

To facilitate integration of the affected Ingenico and Hypercom operations, industry veteran Thierry Denis was appointed President of Ingenico North America. For the past 17 years, Denis has been responsible for Ingenico's business expansion in the Asia Pacific region.

"The acquisition of Hypercom's U.S. business is a major step in our strategic development notably aimed at accelerating the adoption of contactless NFC technology," Phillipe Lazare, Chief Executive Officer of Ingenico, said in a statement. "This will enable us to accelerate our presence in the U.S. through a promising combination of innovative product offers, expertise and extensive customer base."

Lazare added that the acquisition will strengthen and expand Ingenico's presence in the U.S. payments sphere, which is one of Ingenico's "key strategic target markets." According to Ingenico, Hypercom has built a strong customer base across such channels as bankcard, multilane retail and value-added services, and these will benefit from Ingenico's Telium product line, which includes contactless solutions.

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