LONDON (Reuters) – U.S. private equity fund Bain Capital is not interested in buying Worldline, it said on Tuesday, after Reuters reported that several funds had begun evaluating bids in this meaning.
The struggling French payments group is attracting interest from private equity firms, Reuters reported Monday, citing five people familiar with the matter.
Worldline is weakened by its fragile performance on the stock market, its stock having lost 56% since the start of the year, after several profit warnings and a change in its management.
According to two of the sources, Bain Capital is among the private equity firms that are in the early stages of evaluating a possible bid for Worldline.
The first conversations took place in recent weeks, another of these sources said.
Bain Capital, which previously declined to comment, said on Tuesday it had no interest in Worldline and was not involved in deliberations relating to the reported takeover bid.
Worldline, which had a market capitalization of 1.88 billion euros ($1.98 billion) as of Friday’s close, saw its shares rise 21% on Monday after the Reuters article was published, before falling 8% on Tuesday.
Worldline said Monday it does not comment on market rumors.
(Reporting by Amy-Jo Crowley in London and Mathieu Rosemain in Paris; with Elvira Pollina in Milan and Florence Loeve in Paris; Mara Vîlcu; edited by Augustin Turpin)
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