Buysiders
Posts
Global Payments Gives Bankers a Massive Fee Event

Global Payments Gives Bankers a Massive Fee Event

Plus: Adani acquires a port from itself and Silver Lake buys a 51% stake from Intel

Short Squeez
April 30, 2025

Together with

Good morning! Another week of… who knows what. There’s been more governing via Truth Social here in the States, but at least we’re seeing some green on the board. Fundraising and deal flow are still trickling in steadily, though the M&A tsunami has yet to make landfall as we wait for more trade policy decisions.

Even with the trickle, deals are still getting done — with KKR leading the charge as it stays aggressive to avoid another 2020-style miss. While they didn’t make any moves that cracked my top three this month, here’s what caught my eye:

Global Payments acquires Worldpay for ~$23 billion (sort of)
Adani pulls an Elon and sells a company to itself for ~$2 billion
Silver Lake acquires 51% of Altera from Intel for $4.5 billion

Zillow’s founders are back, this time unlocking luxury vacation homes across the globe. Here’s your chance to invest in a new model of luxury living. Learn more about their raise.

First time reading? Sign up here.

Have feedback? Respond here.

DEAL OF THE MONTH

Global Payments Cashes in on WorldPay

You’re probably asking yourself what the world has come to when we’re putting a FinTech deal as Deal of the Month, but hey, we all have to broaden our horizons sometime. Plus, this one has a fun structure I wanted to break down, and you, my finance bro, get to suffer through it with me.

What makes this deal interesting is that it’s a simultaneous investment and divestment for Global Payments.

Global Payments is buying Worldpay from FIS for a net purchase price of $22.7 billion, while simultaneously divesting its Issuer Solutions business to FIS for $13.5 billion.

Basically, Global Payments is paying for Worldpay by issuing shares and handing over Issuer Solutions. Sounds a little messy, but here’s a simple transaction diagram:

Pro forma for the transaction, FIS will own ~15% of Global Payments.

The divestiture is being done at ~12.3× 2025E EBITDA and the acquisition is being done at ~8.5× 2025E EBITDA, which is a pretty hefty spread.

Global Payments expects to add ~$1.6 billion in EBITDA in exchange for ~$10.8 billion of additional consideration.

The transaction is expected to be accretive within the first year, with mid-to-high single-digit accretion thereafter, including ~$600 million of expense synergies and ~$200 million of revenue synergies.

Moving on from the transaction structure: Global Payments has struggled a bit recently, down 27% over the past month but since the transaction was announced, the stock price has moved up slightly.

All in all, this is a big, somewhat complicated deal, but it looks like the market likes it.
Here’s to hoping Global Payments can cash in on Worldpay and reverse that share price decline.

PRESENTED BY PACASO

Missed Zillow? Here’s Your Do-Over.

Investment Opportunity: Pacaso

Industry: Real Estate

Investment Terms: Equity | Min. Investment: $1002.40

Why Invest?

Early Adoption: Market leader in vacation co-ownership, with 2,000+ homeowners and $100M in gross profits.
Executive Experience: Founded by two former Zillow executives, including Zillow’s co-founder, Spencer Rascoff.
International Reach: Pacaso has seen strong success and demand with its properties in London, Paris, and Cabo.

Funds Will Be Used For:

Expanding into more international destinations.
Strengthening product, engineering and home operations.
Marketing and buyer acquisition.

Risks: The primary risk with investing in Pacaso—like any early-stage company—is the time horizon and potential liquidity constraints. As a private company, Pacaso shares are not traded on a public exchange, meaning investors may need to wait for an acquisition or IPO to realize a return. Real estate is cyclical and vulnerable to market downturns.

Other Notes: Invest at $2.80 per share.

NEWS ROUNDUP

Adani Sets Sail Down Under

While Larry Fink is busy retaking the Panama Canal for the U.S., Australia is being a bit less patriotic, letting India’s Adani Group acquire the North Queensland Export Terminal for ~$2.5 billion. To fund the deal, Adani will issue ~143.8 million shares to Carmichael Rail and Port Singapore Holdings.

The North Queensland Export Terminal moves ~50 million tonnes of material (primarily coal) each year, and exported ~35 million tons to Asia and Europe in FY2025.

The market hasn’t exactly loved the news. Adani shares have dropped ~5.6% since the announcement.

For those unfamiliar, Adani Group is a massive Indian conglomerate with its hands in just about everything. That includes…this port! That’s right, Adani indirectly already owns the port operator. Basically, Adani is just moving this entity into its publicly listed vehicle, which already owns / operates ports in numerous countries.

Turns out, Elon isn’t the only billionaire who just sells assets to himself whenever he feels like it. To paraphrase one of TV’s greatest villains: “If I had a nickel for every time a billionaire sold a company to himself for shares in 2025, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice.”

STRATEGIC DEAL OF THE MONTH

SilverLake Makes an Intel-ligent Investment

I’ll admit, when I first heard there was a deal about chips, I got excited for another food acquisition. Turns out, I was lied to. But this deal is still worth a look.

Intel has agreed to sell a 51% stake in its Altera programmable chip business to Silver Lake for $4.5 billion.

Now most of us would be happy with an ~$8.8 billion valuation, but the guy who did the deal at Intel will probably disagree with you. In 2015, Intel paid ~$17 billion for Altera, so this deal isn’t exactly a home run. It’s not even getting on base.

Intel’s new CEO has made it clear that the company is looking to divest assets as part of refocusing the company after previous CEOs have left Intel struggling against Nvidia and AMD.

Spinning out Altera has been on Intel’s list of activities since last year. Given the length of time it has taken to spin this asset out, it isn’t shocking that the valuation was not close to what was paid for it.

The analysis of Intel’s share price will be marred by Trump’s trade policies as there have been various back and forth on whether or not chips will be tariffed. The shares were initially up ~2.8% in the aftermarket, but has since traded down. Again, the share price performance is mixed by the trade policy, so take this with a grain of salt.

Overall, it’s nice to see an American staple refocusing its business. But with all of the tariff talk and other issues, this divestment may not be a big mover for Intel’s share price in the near term. Silver Lake is known for its tech investing skills, so Intel could see some material value creation on its remaining stake if it chooses to hold onto it.