DWF advises Capita on acquisition of PayPoint plc’s online payments business

DWF’s Glasgow corporate team has advised Capita plc on its £14 million acquisition of PayPoint plc’s online payments business, comprising of PayPoint.net and Metacharge.

PayPoint’s online payment businesses offer a secure and integrated payment platform and solutions for payment card security, fraud risk management and payment reporting.

The DWF team, led by corporate partner Paul Pignatelli with support from senior solicitor Danielle Kidd, tax partner Ronnie Brown and associate Catherine Harrison and solicitor Adam Russell from the commercial practice, advised Capita on the transaction which will enhance its Pay360 client offering.

The acquisition follows a number recent transactions in the IT sector on which DWF’s corporate team have advised Capita including: its acquisition of Pervasive Networks; its purchase of geospatial solutions business Sigma Seven and the £80m acquisition of network services provider Updata Infrastructure (UK) Limited.

Mr Pignatelli said: “Capita is an ambitious business that continues to expand to offers greater value and breadth and depth of services to its clients, and we were delighted to be working with Capita on another strategic acquisition.”

“This is a great deal to kick-start 2016. Last year we saw a 30 per cent uplift on year-on-year deals activity, and the pipeline for this year looks strong, which is good news for our growing corporate practice and the wider business market in Scotland and across the UK.”

DWF’s was recently ranked number one legal adviser for 2015 in the Scottish M&A market in Experian’s end of year deal review and league tables, and the Scottish practice continued to expand with the appointments of Andrew Lothian from Anderson Strathern as head of casualty and general insurance and planning partner Moray Thomson from MacRoberts.