Summary
- Enel, Intesa buy of Mooney to create a European fintech group
- The deal values Mooney Group at 1.385 bln euros
- Enel to pay 334-361 mln euros for 50% of Mooney
Italian utility Enel SpA (ENEI.MI) will take joint control of the payments firm Mooney alongside Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (ISP.MI). Once the deal is concluded successfully and Enel controls 50% of Mooney, they will launch a European-based fintech group.
Enel and Intesa, under the deal – which values Mooney at 1.385 billion euros ($1.6 billion) – will buy out the 70% stake held by a company controlled by private equity CVC Capital Partners. Through its Banca 5 unit, Intesa already owns 30% of Mooney.
On December 25, the companies said that Enel will pay between 334 million and 361 million euros for its part of the stake while Intesa will pay between 88 million and 94 million euros for the remaining 20%.
For 140 million euros, Enel will sell its financial service business in Italy to Mooney at the end of the second quarter next year, when the deal is completed, building scale in an industry that has grown during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In 2020, Enel became the first of Europe’s big utility companies to launch new digital banking services. As it ramps up digitalization across its networks and businesses, it sees a new opportunity for growth in payment and open banking services such as wealth management and insurance. Francesco Starace Enel Chief Executive said:
“… Digital payments (are) being increasingly utilized on power bills as well as on advanced, ‘beyond commodity’ services, such as electric mobility.”
Apart from having about 20 million customers, Mooney, which last year had sales of 153 million euros, also processed some 20% of all Enel electricity bills. It also has a stake in a digital platform providing more than 2 million consumers with mobility services.
Intesa Sanpaolo confirmed that for the customers less interested in visiting its branches, Mooney would drive down the cost-to-serve and would help it acquire new clients. Mooney is seen as a strategic asset by Italy’s biggest bank to help steer its branches towards higher-margin services like wealth management and insurance.
($1 = 0.8826 euro)
