Ant Financial, the Alibaba affiliate company focused on financial services, appears to have finally won its battle with Euronet to acquire MoneyGram, the..
Ant Financial , the Alibaba affiliate company focused on financial services, appears to have finally won its battle with Euronet to acquire MoneyGram , the U. S.-based cross-border payments service, after it increased its bid to $1.2 billion.
The firm initially bid $880 million for MoneyGram back in January, but now it has increased its offer from $13.25 per share for NASDAQ-listed MoneyGram to $18.00 following a counter bid from Euronet lodged in March. Euronet, which is also based in the U. S., offered $1 billion and played up concerns around the potential for MoneyGram to be acquired by a Chinese company — Ant Financial, which operates Alipay, China’s largest online payment provider.
Ant Financial’s new offer — which represents a 64 percent premium to MoneyGram’s average share price prior to the announcement of the first offer — has been unanimously approved by MoneyGram’s board, while a collection of shareholders who own 46 percent of voting rights have also given it the nod.
On its side, Ant Financial said it has “already made significant progress towards obtaining the regulatory approvals necessary to complete the transaction.
