Visa, Plaid call off $5.3 bln deal (updated)
12/01/2021 21:39
(Adds context, comments)
Jan 12 (Reuters) - Visa V.N and financial technology
company Plaid 4165.T said on Tuesday that they would terminate
their $5.3 billion merger agreement following a U.S. government
lawsuit aimed at stopping the proposed transaction on antitrust
grounds.
The U.S. Justice Department had sued to stop the deal in
November, saying that Visa was a "a monopolist in online debit
transactions" and that the proposed acquisition "would eliminate
a nascent competitive threat" to that monopoly. urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2HR1UK
The deal, which was proposed in January 2020, was scrapped
to avoid protracted litigation, said Al Kelly, chairman and CEO
of Visa Inc.
"We are confident we would have prevailed in court as
Plaid's capabilities are complementary to Visa's, not
competitive," he added.
Visa said in January it had agreed to buy privately held
Plaid in a $5.3 billion deal aimed at boosting the payments
giant's access to the booming financial technology sector.
urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N29I3L2
(Reporting by Diane Bartz in Washington and Praveen Paramasivam
in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta and Rosalba O'Brien)
((Praveen.Paramasivam@thomsonreuters.com))