Private equity house Warburg Pincus has acquired German point-of-sale network operator easycash from First Data International.
First Data sold easycash in a competitive auction in line with conditions laid down by the German Federal Cartel Office following its June acquisition of domestic card processor GZS Gesellschaft für Zahlungssysteme mbH. Financial details of the transaction have not been disclosed.
Easycash offers customised card-based payment solutions and credit card routing to a broad range of merchant customers. The company, located in Ratingen, Germany, has a total of 200 employees at two locations and operates around 165,000 active terminals. A total of more than 700 million transactions were processed nationwide in Germany in 2005, 302 million of which were electronic cash and Maestro transactions. The total process volume was €43 billion.
Siegfried Heimgärtner, managing director of easycash, describes Warburg Pincus as a growth investor with extensive experience in the financial technology sector. "Warburg Pincus’ history of building companies over the long term is an excellent fit for easycash and will enable us to continue providing the highest level of service and quality to our customers," he says.