Process pulled out of its $4.7 billion acquisition of Bildesk announced last year, a month after the proposed acquisition received approval from the local antitrust watchdog as the European tech giant was described as large, but said certain conditions were not met. go on.
“Certain conditions have not been met by September 30, 2022, and the agreement has been automatically terminated in accordance with its terms, and accordingly the proposed transaction will not be implemented,” Amsterdam-listed Process said in a statement on Monday. Identify those situations.
The all-cash acquisition, announced at the height of the bull cycle last year, was slated to be the second largest M&A deal in the South Asian market for consumer internet space. In recent quarters, as the market has shifted, many promising deals have fallen through globally.
Naspers’ investment arm — which has invested nearly $6 billion in India, including big bets on edtech Byju’s and food delivery startup Swiggy — has lost more than half its market value since the start of last year.
In recent months, it has been selling shares in several firms, including Tencent and JD.com. Process shares were little changed on Monday’s announcement, indicating that investors don’t think the absence of Bildesk will materially hurt Process.
The deal would have allowed Process, the owner of PayU, which is already growing rapidly, to dominate the payment processing market in India. BillDesk provides payments to most Indian government departments. At the time of the acquisition, Pross said the higher price tag was due to the expansion of the combined businesses.
Process indeed believes that the payments market in India has shown cracks in recent quarters and does not want to go ahead with last year’s arrangement, two people familiar with the matter told TechCrunch.
Pross believes there is no termination fee associated with the deal, meaning it will walk away unscathed. BillDesk could not be reached for comment. The move to terminate the deal surprised many of its direct stakeholders, including Bill Desk’s founders and several of its investors, according to people familiar with the situation who spoke on condition of anonymity over the collapse of India’s biggest payments deal.
Many fintech founders were shocked by the development, wondering how the deal was broken. Process said it is “committed to the Indian market and will grow its business in the region.”
The founders of Bill Desk, founded by three consultants, stood to make $500 million each from the acquisition deal. Bill Desk — which counts Visa, Temasek, General Atlantic and several Indian banks among its backers — has raised $245 million to date. It was valued at $1.59 billion after the January 2019 funding round, according to research firm Tracxn.
Prior to the deal with Prosys, BillDesk had planned an initial public offering internally. PayU and 20-year-old BillDesk run the largest number of payment transactions in India. Combined, they would command more than 40% of the Indian market, more than their closest competitor (Razorpay), according to industry estimates.
“Together, PayU India and BillDesk will be able to meet the payment needs of digital consumers, merchants and government enterprises in India and provide state-of-the-art technology to the most underserved segments of society, providing a regulatory environment and strong consumer protection in India,” Process said while announcing the acquisition.
