News

UK's Optimal Payments to purchase GMA, Meritus

July 2, 2014

London-based Optimal Payments PLC, an online payments and risk management provider, has announced an agreement to acquire all of the partnership interests of California based payment processing entity Meritus Payment Solutions for $210 million in cash and Optimal Payments shares. 

Optimal Payments has also entered into an agreement to acquire the trade and assets of Global Merchant Advisors Inc. (GMA), a U.S.-based online payments company, for up to $15 million in cash.

The Meritus and the GMA acquisitions are conditional on one another and are expected to close early in Q3.
 
Strategic highlights of the acquisitions:

• more than 8,000 U.S. high growth small and medium merchants added in a broad range of vertical markets;
• provides a successful, established and multi-channel U.S. sales force;
• provides additional established U.S. acquiring bank relationships with leading bank partners; and
• diversifies and broadens Optimal Payments’ NETBANX payment gateway and acquiring services business.

Other benefits:

• expected to materially reduce major merchant concentration;
• delivers synergistic corporate culture, values and entrepreneurial spirit; and
• Meritus brand has a strong presence and value in the key U.S. market. 

In a statement about the agreements, Joel Leonoff, president and CEO of Optimal Payments said:

The U.S. market represents the single greatest expansion opportunity for Optimal Payments. After careful evaluation of a number of potential candidates, Meritus stood out as the perfect choice on all fronts.  The company’s strong stakeholder relationships, multi-channel sales force, established presence with small and medium businesses in the U.S. and entrepreneurial spirit makes them an ideal acquisition for us. I am very excited about the combination of our businesses which immediately accelerates the Group’s growth opportunities and accomplishes a stated key strategic goal for us in 2014.

Alan Kleinman, principal and co-founder of Meritus also released a statement:

Combining forces with Optimal Payments marks a significant step in realizing our strategic goals. Optimal Payments offers our employees, merchants and business partners the experience, global infrastructure and product offering to achieve the scale required in today’s payments market. Our two organizations share the same enthusiasm and philosophy for future growth as we prepare to combine operations and leverage each other’s strengths.