CHICAGO -- GTCR Golder Rauner, LLC has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the Transaction Solutions subsidiary of PSINet Inc. in partnership with an executive team led by the acquired company's founder, Jack McDonnell.
The company will revert to its former name, Transaction Network Services (TNS), upon completion of the transaction. The purchase price for the acquisition is $285 million.
McDonnell founded TNS in 1990 as a provider of network services for credit card transaction processing companies. The company completed an IPO in 1994 and expanded into other network services areas before its sale to PSINet in late 1999.
Today, TNS is the leading network services provider for POS credit card and ATM transactions. The company's networks carried approximately 6.5 billion transactions domestically in 2000, and TNS is expanding its POS and ATM services business internationally.
Additionally, the company offers SS7, local number portability and other network-based services to telecommunications carriers. TNS also operates a secure IP-based extranet to support the Financial Information eXchange (FIX) messaging protocol and other transactional trading applications for the securities industry.
``I am thrilled to have this opportunity to build upon what we accomplished previously at TNS,' McDonnell said. ``With GTCR's strong financial backing, we expect to grow TNS, both in its current markets and in new areas.'
According to GTCR Principal William Kessinger, the transaction processing market is a point of focus for his private equity firm. ``We see a number of significant investment opportunities in this growing segment,' he said.
Founded in 1980, GTCR Golder Rauner, LLC is a private equity investment firm and long-term strategic partner for management teams. GTCR currently manages more than $4 billion of equity capital invested in a wide variety of companies and industries.
Earlier this year, GTCR backed Genpass Inc. in its acquisition of the ATM businesses of ACS, including the Moneymaker network.
