AnaCap acquires 60% stake in Carrefour payments platform

By Rhys Thomas
Investment firm set to acquire majority holding of Market Pay, the European retail giant’s growing digital payments platform...

Carrefour is set to offload a majority stake in its digital payments platform Market Pay to AnaCap Financial Partners.

AnaCap, a European financial investment firm, will acquire 60% of retail group’s payments arm in a deal valued at around €300m. 

Market Pay was developed in-house at Carrefour in 2016, expanding in the intervening years to managing 5m cards and more than a billion annual transactions. Bolstered by Carrefour’s retail dominance in Europe, the payments system operates through a unified data platform to offer a multitude of payments solutions for merchants and fintech firms. 

Nassim Cherchali, Partner for M&A at AnaCap, says: “Market Pay is uniquely positioned at the heart of the deep, fragmented and rapidly developing European payments ecosystem, benefiting from the consumer shift from cash to card and offline to online.”

The firm aims to capitalise on the transition from cash to digital payments that has been accelerated by COVID-19, expanding into new markets across Europe and further penetration in ecommerce. 

Market Pay in numbers:

  • Established in 2016
  • 1.3bn transactions handled each year 
  • 5m cards in use 
  • 45,000 payment terminals operated 
  • €30m in net sales expected in 2020

“Exciting new chapter”

Mazurier says the move presents “an exciting new chapter for the company in 2021 and beyond”, and aims to leverage AnaCap’s expertise and substantial investment portfolio in payments ecosystems to further develop the Market Pay platform. 

The tie-up marks AnaCap’s first venture into the French market, where Carrefour is based, and follows eight similar acquisitions in the DACH region (Germany, Austria and Switzerland) as part of a buy and build strategy centred around heidelpay, a German payments business that was sold to KKR last year. 

The transaction is expected to close in the first half of 2021, pending approval from regulatory and competition authorities, with Carrefour retaining a minority stake. 

Share

Featured Articles

First Citizens Bank in rescue deal for Silicon Valley Bank

First Citizens Bank, which has completed more than 15 acquisitions of stricken US banks since 2009, has stepped in to take over SVB

Banks are capping crypto spending, but are they right to?

Several banks in the UK are limiting the amount of money that account holders can transfer to crypto exchanges. Is the move justified, or an overreach?

UBS agrees to rescue troubled Swiss bank Credit Suisse

UBS has agreed to rescue its troubled Swiss banking peer Credit Suisse, a move that has been welcomed by the Swiss National Bank and ECB alike

Credit Suisse gets $50bn emergency finance from central bank

Banking

Regulators race to salvage collapsed Silicon Valley Bank

Banking

Stripe's UK Head of Engineering talks 'women in fintech'

Digital Payments