Yesterday, Poste Italiane S.p.A. (“Poste Italiane”), through its fully owned subsidiary PostePay S.p.A. (“PostePay”), following receipt of all necessary approvals from the relevant regulatory bodies and competition authorities, completed the acquisition of LIS Holding S.p.A. (LIS) from International Game Technology PLC (“IGT”). Consistently with the announcement made on 28 February 2022, the consideration paid for the acquisition of 100% of the share capital of LIS is equal to €700 million, including conventional net unrestricted cash of €70 million.
Points of sale
As a long-standing commercial partner of Poste Italiane, LIS relies on a proprietary paytech platform and capabilities as well as a highly qualified management team and is active in the Italian proximity payment market through a network of nearly 54,000 affiliated points of sale, offering services including bill payments, prepaid payment cards, telco & e-vouchers top-ups as well as merchant and enterprise service solutions. LIS also provides an integrated management of all merchant back-office activities as well as payment and commercial services to customers. LIS generated €228 million gross revenues and €40 million EBITDA in 2021 and €132 million gross revenues and €24 million EBITDA (+16% year-on-year) in H1-22.
Omnichannel strategy
In line with the integrated omnichannel strategy at the heart of the 24SI plan, LIS will consolidate PostePay’s leadership in the payment business and digital services ecosystem. PostePay will leverage LIS’s technological know-how to expand its product offering and strengthen solutions available for Small & Medium Enterprises, thus consolidating its positioning as a paytech leader. Key to Poste Italiane’s integrated omnichannel distribution platform, PostePay provides solutions for the daily needs of customers through the integration of payment and telecommunication services as well as a full retail offer in the energy sector. PostePay manages 28.3 million payment cards and around 10 million digital wallets as of 30 June 2022. Revenues for the Payments & Mobile segment were up 21% in the first half of 2022.
Leading paytech company
Matteo Del Fante, Poste Italiane CEO and General Manager, commented: “LIS’s acquisition represents the largest M&A deal in Poste Italiane’s history, testifying the commitment to increase our market share in a fast-growing payment segment, strengthening PostePay’s positioning as a leading paytech company and further contributing to the implementation of our omnichannel strategy. We welcome the management team and all employees and are pleased that LIS delivered first-half results in line with our expectations, further accelerating in the second half of 2022. The full control of LIS’s proprietary platform along with the internalization of its technological know-how, will allow us to further pursue our omnichannel and payments strategy.”
