STRATEGIC PARTNERS
December 5, 2001
CINCINNATI -- Fifth Third Bank's Midwest Payment Systems division (MPS) has acquired the remaining 51 percent of privately-held Universal Companies (USB), a vertically-integrated payment processor based in Milwaukee.
Fifth Third Bank purchased 49 percent of Universal's outstanding common and preferred stock earlier this year, with an option to acquire the remaining shares at a later date. The purchase price of the deal was not disclosed and will be accounted for as a purchase business combination.
According to a Fifth Third news release, the acquisition will give MPS the resources and infrastructure to add to its smaller merchant base and provide merchant processing to third parties. To date, MPS' primary market has been larger, high-volume merchants.
Founded in 1992, Universal Companies performs payment processing services for agent banks, independent sales organizations and more than 55,000 small and medium-sized merchants. In 2000, USB processed more than $4 billion in transaction volume. USB's product offerings include traditional payment acceptance as well as electronic check conversion, check guarantee and customized gift card programs.
Barry L. Boerstler, executive vice president at Fifth Third Bank, said, "Because of the complimentary nature of the acquisition, we have been able to avoid the need for any conversion activity and focus our internal integration efforts exclusively on delivering additional products and services for our entire sales channel to offer.'
MPS processes more than six billion ATM, POS and e-commerce transactions per year for more than 90,000 retail and financial institutions worldwide, including The Kroger Company, Abercrombie & Fitch, Nordstrom, Inc. and The Finish Line, with over $60 billion in credit card sales volume annually. MPS drives over 10,000 ATMs worldwide.
Its Merchant Services product offering includes credit and debit card acceptance, electronic benefits transfer, purchasing card acceptance and fleet card acceptance.
