Worldpay Snubs £6.6bn Bid In Favour Of Float

The British payment services firm Worldpay has snubbed a £6.6bn bid from a French rival to press ahead with a stock market listing.

As Sky News reported earlier this week , Ingenico Group (Swiss: ING.SW - news) had tabled an all-cash takeover bid that would have created a world payments giant worth about £11bn.

Worldpay later decided there was more value in its original flotation plan.

The Initial Public Offering (IPO) should catapult the company, owned by Advent International and Bain Capital, into the FTSE 100.

The flotation was announced roughly five years after Worldpay was sold by the bailed-out Royal Bank of Scotland (LSE: RBS.L - news) (RBS) in a deal worth approximately £2bn.‎

The payments group has grown at a spectacular rate since then, with chief executive Philip Jansen, a former executive with the catering group Sodexo and MyTravel, spearheading the company's growth.

Sir Mike Rake, the City grandee, recently took over as chairman.

Specialising in the provision of secure payment services, its major corporate customers include Google (Xetra: A0B7FY - news) and Sony (Hanover: SON1.HA - news) .

The company said that on a typical day, it processes approximately 31 million mobile, online and in-store transactions worldwide.

It (Other OTC: ITGL - news) employs 4,500 people with its latest financial results, for the first six months of 2015, showing revenue and profits growing by 13% to £465.7m and £182.6m respectively.

Mr Jansen said today: "We have invested over £1bn in our technology, people and capabilities including over £400m in a state of the art global payments acquiring engine as well as in the recruitment of approximately 2,500 highly skilled colleagues.

"As a result, we have built a modern and sophisticated technology-led organisation with huge potential.

"The IPO is an exciting and logical next step as we seek to continue this momentum. It will enable us to access new capital for growth, augment our global proposition and further enhance our ability to serve customers across the world."

Ingenico (Paris: FR0000125346 - news) 's shares were up more than 10% on the Euronext (Lisbon: ENX.LS - news) stock exchange in Paris in response to Worldpay's decision.