Deal could have settled RBS loss

Firm once owned by bailed-out bank sold for £32bn

A PAYMENTS firm sold by taxpayer-saved Royal Bank of Scotland for £2billion in 2010 has changed hands for more than £30bn.

RBS was ordered by the EU in 2009 to sell Worldpay as a penalty for being bailed-out in the banking crisis. It was bought a year later by private equity firms Bain Capital and Advent International.

RBS retained a 20% stake until 2013, when it offloaded the rest.

Bain and Advent went on to make a packet by floating Worldpay on the stock market in 2015.

Two years later, Worldpay merged with US rival Vantiv in a

£9bn deal.

Now another US company, Fidelity National Information Services (FIS) has swooped in a deal valuing Worldpay at £32.5bn.

Yet while investors are quids in, the Office for Budget Responsibility confirmed last week that UK taxpayers are still nursing a £31bn loss from saving RBS a decade ago.

Worldpay, originally part of NatWest, accounts for 41% of UK payments, processing 400 mobile, online and on-stores transactions a second. The New York listed company is still headquartered in London, where it employs 5,000 people. It has 25 offices in 11 countries. Gary Norcross, chairman and chief executive officer of FIS, said: “Scale matters in our rapidly changing industry.” Russ Mould, investment director at City firm AJ Bell, said: “Large corporate transactions continue to happen despite fears over a global economic slowdown.”