VeriFone to Buy European Payment Provider Point

VeriFone Systems Inc. said Monday that it is buying the Northern European payment and gateway services provider Point.

VeriFone, of San Jose, Calif., said it would pay about $825 million to Nordic Capital Fund V, which owns Point. VeriFone would also retire about $234 million in Point's debt when the deal closes. The acquisition of the Stockholm company is expected to close by yearend.

The acquisition would give VeriFone about 475,000 additional merchant contracts across 11 Northern European countries.

The acquisition is meant to fuel VeriFone's support of alternative payment forms.

"Our vision is to offer retailers everywhere a managed service to easily accept all existing payment types, including the evolving alternative and mobile payment methods being offered by Google, PayPal, Groupon, Isis, Visa, MasterCard and American Express," Douglas G. Bergeron, VeriFone's chief executive, said in a press release Monday. "At the same time, we can increasingly offer the new payment entrants easy and accelerated access to our worldwide installation of more than 20 million merchant lanes."

VeriFone bought part of its rival Hypercom Corp., of Scottsdale, Ariz., in August. Hypercom's U.S. terminal business was picked up by the private-equity firm Gores Group LLC, which owned VeriFone from 2001 to 2005.