Fidelity National Information Services Inc., or FIS, announced a $34 billion agreement Monday morning to buy Worldpay Inc., a Cincinnati-based payments technology company.
Our Jacksonville Daily Record news partner reports the merger would make Jacksonville-based FIS, which provides technology services for financial institutions, Jacksonville’s biggest company with combined 2018 revenue of about $12.3 billion.
“Scale matters in our rapidly changing industry,” FIS Chief Executive Gary Norcross said in a news release.
“Our two powerhouse organizations will combine forces to offer a customer-driven combination of scale, global presence and the industry’s broadest range of global financial solutions. As a combined organization, we will bring the most modern solutions targeted at the highest growth markets,” he said.
Norcross will remain chairman, president and CEO of FIS after the merger. Worldpay CEO Charles Drucker will become vice chairman of the board of directors.
Worldpay stockholders will receive 0.9287 shares of FIS stock and $11 in cash for each of their shares. Current FIS stockholders will end up with 53 percent of the combined company.
Based on FIS' closing price of $108.88 a share Friday, the deal is valued at $112.12 for each Worldpay share.
Worldpay, which has about 300 million outstanding shares, closed at $98.68 Friday.
The deal was announced before the stock market opened Monday.
FIS, with $8.4 billion in revenue last year, is already a Fortune 500 company. The merger would move FIS up the list and slightly ahead of Jacksonville-based railroad company CSX Corp., which had $12.25 billion in 2018 revenue.
FIS was spun off from Jacksonville-based title insurance company Fidelity National Financial Inc. in 2006.