Global Cash Access Inc. said Thursday it has agreed to buy Fidelity National Information Services Inc.'s casino cash access unit, Certegy Gaming Services Inc.
The Las Vegas unit of Global Cash Access Holdings Inc. provides casino patrons with credit and cash advances. Certegy Gaming provides similar services at 130 North American casinos.
Global Cash Access said it would purchase all of Certegy Gaming's stock for $25 million. It will also pay another $75 million to cover the value of the cash that is stored in Certegy's automated teller machines.
The transaction is expected to close late next month or in early April.
Purchasing Certegy Gaming "will help ensure we maintain the scale necessary to advance our product innovation efforts," Scott H. Betts, the president and chief executive of Global Cash Access, said in a press release. "We also see this move as essential for us to continue to compete effectively in the highly competitive electronic payments market."
Also Thursday, Global Cash Access said its fourth-quarter revenue rose 1.5% from a year earlier, to $144 million. Net income dropped 86.8%, to $730,000.
For the full year, its revenue rose 9.6%, to $600.9 million, and net income fell 15.4%, to $22.5 million.
Mr. Betts said the loss was mainly due to "the underlying weakness in the gaming market."
Global Cash Access also said that it is discontinuing its Arriva credit card and exploring strategic options for Arriva Card Inc., the unit that offers the card.
