The Leawood, Kan., electronic funds processor Euronet Worldwide Inc. said Thursday that it has dropped its plans to purchase the Minneapolis remittance company MoneyGram International Inc.
In December, Euronet made an unsolicited $1.65 billion bid for MoneyGram, but that deal was put on hold this month, when MoneyGram said it would sell 63% of itself to Thomas H. Lee Partners LP, which would pay for $710 million in cash, and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which would pay $775 million.
Those deals, expected to close March 12, require MoneyGram to entertain any better offers until March 7.
Euronet had said it was considering making a better offer, but on Thursday it said it decided such a deal would not make economic sense.
"Although the acquisition has tremendous industrial logic and may be quite beneficial to MoneyGram's shareholders, the current debt and equity markets will not enable us to acquire MoneyGram on terms that would give our Euronet shareholders the accretion and return on investment that we would require," Michael J. Brown, Euronet's chairman and chief executive, said in a press release.
