The Western Union Company (NYSE:WU) announced today that it has signed an agreement to acquire Finint S.r.l., one of its leading money transfer network agents in Europe.
Finint manages more than 10,000 subagent locations across Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom. Western Union currently owns 30 percent of the company and will acquire the remaining 70 percent. The transaction complements Western Union's acquisitions of leading European network agents FEXCO in 2009, and Angelo Costa S.r.l. earlier this year.
"The acquisition of Finint is another step in advancing our European strategies to grow the money transfer business and introduce new products and services," said Hikmet Ersek, Western Union's President and CEO. "It represents a sound international investment, and in combination with our previous European acquisitions allows us to improve processes and productivity through centralized support functions."
Finint Chief Executive Officer Paolo Fiorelli added, "We have been with Western Union for more than 16 years now and over this period we built a terrific partnership. Western Union is a great business, a great brand and a great company to work with. It is because of this very fruitful relationship that Finint became one of the largest independent Western Union agents in the world. At this time, the acquisition makes a lot of strategic sense and Western Union will have our full support during transition."
The transaction is subject to regulatory approvals and satisfaction of closing conditions, and is expected to close in the second half of 2011. The Company expects the acquisition to be slightly accretive to earnings in 2011 due to gains anticipated to be recorded on the revaluation of its previous ownership interest, partially offset by integration costs.