Sector Reports

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Private equity groups Bain Capital and Advent International have agreed to buy 80.1% of RBS WorldPay, the world’s fourth-largest provider of card payment services and the largest in the UK and Europe, for £2.025bn (US$3.15bn) by enterprise value.

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France Telecom, which owns the Orange brand, has Morocco’s second-largest telecoms operator, Meditel, in its sights, with reports that it could end up buying a 40% stake worth €650m. A deal could even be agreed as early as this summer.

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The deal that GDF Suez struck to take over International Power represents a significant and almost certainly enduring change in the approach of big European energy utilities to acquisitions in the wake of the credit crunch – use as little cash as possible.

After talks on Wednesday between President Barack Obama and BP chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg and chief executive Tony Hayward, BP said it would have to sell US$10bn worth of assets to cover US$20bn of potential costs, resulting from the catastrophic environmental disaster that has hit the Gulf of Mexico.