M&A Is Unpredictable, But Deals Are Emerging As CEOs Plan for Economies of Scale

Payments has always been an acquisitive business, as economies of scale loom large for CEOs and CFOs and buying that scale can often look cheaper and quicker than building it over time. But so far, activity in 2024 is mapping to what was seen last year—which is to say, slow. “The number of transactions is down considerably” since the start of 2023, notes Zach Spellman, a project manager at the Omaha-based research and consulting firm TSG who tracks payments M&A.

“Just compared with 2023, this year has been pretty much on par,” Spellman notes. Indeed, exactly on par. TSG tracked 38 deals through July, the same number it recorded over the same seven months last year, which ended with 72 announced deals. That was down from 114 in 2022 and from 132 in 2021.

But M&A is an unpredictable factor in any industry, as Spellman notes, and planners can’t rule out a resurgence in dealmaking. Corporate bosses are looking to set their plans now for years to come, and may see acquisitions as a quick and efficient way to reach their numbers. Still, no single factor stands out as a motivator behind the dealmaking Spellman has recorded this year. “I can’t tell you what’s driving all the M&A,” Spellman says, though clearly near-term plans weigh heavily on CEOs’ minds.

“At this point in time, people are trying to conclude on their yearly goals and to close by year-end and set themselves up for 2025,” Spellman notes.

Recent deals in that light include an announcement from Stripe Inc. at the end of July that it has acquired Lemon Squeezy LLC, a Salt Lake City-based processor, for an undisclosed sum. Stripe knows the company intimately, as it has been processing transactions on Stripe’s platform since its startup four years ago.

Shift4 Payments Inc. has been flexing its M&A muscles as well, securing in the second quarter a $250-million deal for the POS technology vendor Revel Systems. Weeks later, it paid about $38 million to acquire Vectron Systems AG, a deal that gave Shift4 a bigger presence in POS technology for restaurants in Europe.

Among other recent transactions is a deal by Bharcap Partners for a majority stake in Electronic Merchant Systems Inc. and an agreement by Celero Commerce to buy SONA, a processor operating in Canada. That deal will bring Celero’s total North American processing volume to $26 billion annually, the company says. Terms were not announced for either of these transactions.

The only certainty in M&A is that nobody can predict where the M&A total will end up by year’s end. If a pick-up in activity is emerging, if not a return to the frenzy of 2021 and 2022, the only solid factor, Spellman says, is that “there is considerable interest [in deals] for the rest of the year.”