A $230 Million Payday for CheckFree’s Kight

ATLANTA – CheckFree founder and CEO Peter Kight, who has become the leading pitchman for electronic transactions, will be the biggest individual financial winner of pending sale of the company to Fiserv. The CheckFree Chief stands to earn more than $230 million from the sale of the more than 4.8 million shares he owns to Fiserv at $48 each, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The companies announced the deal yesterday, for a total of $4.2 billion. But Kight won’t be the biggest winner, overall. That will be Microsoft Corp., which stands to earn more than $410 million from the sale to Fiserv of its 8.1 million CheckFree shares. Microsoft obtained the shares as part of the 2000 sale of Transpoint electronics bill payments provider, to CheckFree. Transpoint was owned jointly by Microsoft and First Data Corp.