Network International Holdings provides technology-enabled payments as a service to merchants and financial institutions in the Middle East and Africa. It is listed on the

London Stock Exchange The London Stock Exchange (LSE) is a stock exchange based in London, England. the total market value of all companies trading on the LSE stood at US$3.42 trillion. Its current premises are situated in Paternoster Square close to St Paul's Cath ...

until it was acquired by

Brookfield Asset Management Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. is a Canadian-American alternative asset manager. The company was founded in December 2022 as a spin-off of the asset management operations of Brookfield Corporation. At its inception, the company was headquarter ...

in September 2024.

History

The company was founded in the United Arab Emirates as a payments subsidiary of Emirates Bank in 1994. Mainly operating in the Middle East and Africa region it became the first independent vendor in the Middle East to be certified by Mastercard and

Visa Visa most commonly refers to: * Travel visa, a document that allows entry to a foreign country * Visa Inc., a US multinational financial and payment cards company ** Visa Debit card issued by the above company ** Visa Electron, a debit card ** Vi ...

for payments, and a member of the JCB and UnionPay card schemes. The Abraaj Group bought a 49 per cent stake in the business in 2011. In January 2017, Simon Haslam, CEO of US payments processor Elavon replaced Bhairav Trivedi as CEO. Nandan Mer, Mastercard Strategy Head for International Markets, took over Simon upon the latter’s retirement in 2021. The Abraaj Group sold its stake to a joint venture between

Warburg Pincus Warburg Pincus LLC is a global private equity firm, headquartered in New York City, with offices in the United States, Europe, Brazil, China, Southeast Asia and India. Warburg has been a private equity investor since 1966. As of April 2024 the f ...

and

General Atlantic General Atlantic, legal main entity General Atlantic Service Company, L.P., (also known as "GA") is an American growth equity firm providing capital and strategic support for global growth companies, headquartered in New York, United States. T ...

in 2015. In a deal worth $340 million, Network acquired Emerging Markets Payments (EMP) from

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in March 2016, creating the largest payments processor in the MENA region, estimated as five times larger than CSC in Lebanon by Bhairav Trivedi, the CEO of Network at the time. It remains the largest payments processor in the region. In March 2019, Network announced its intention to float on the

's main market, as well as the appointment of

Ron Kalifa Sir Rohinton Minoo "Ron" Kalifa (born April 1961) is a British entrepreneur. In May 2019, Ron was appointed as a Non-Executive Director to the Bank of England’s Court of Directors and later became Senior Independent Director. He has held variou ...

OBE, British payments rival Worldpay's former CEO, as Chairman. The company was the subject of an

initial public offering An initial public offering (IPO) or stock launch is a public offering in which shares of a company are sold to institutional investors and usually also to retail (individual) investors. An IPO is typically underwritten by one or more investm ...

in April 2019. It was the largest float of that year until that point, listing with a valuation of £2.2 billion in the premium listing segment of the Official List of the Financial Conduct Authority and trading on the Main Market of the London Stock Exchange. It also joined the FTSE 250 index of companies. Network International sold 40% of its shares at the IPO. In addition to this, Mastercard bought a cornerstone investment of $300 million, though the deal subject to a 9.99% limit, which it stated it would invest in shared projects with Network in the

MENA region The Middle East and North Africa (MENA), also referred to as West Asia and North Africa (WANA) or South West Asia and North Africa (SWANA), is a geographic region which comprises the Middle East (also called West Asia) and North Africa together ...

as part of the deal. Mastercard is now the fourth largest shareholder in Network International after

and

Emirates NBD Emirates NBD Bank PJSC is Dubai's government-owned bank and is one of the largest banking groups in the Middle East in terms of assets. History and profile Emirates NBD was initially formed as the National Bank of Dubai (NBD) on 19 June 1963 b ...

. While there were some concerns regarding Brexit's impact on market conditions Kalifa commented that the London IPO would not be troubled by Brexit, as Network's business is not reliant on the UK-EU relationship. In September 2021, Network announced the completion of its acquisition of DPO Group for $291.3 million. DPO is the largest online payments platform operating across Africa, operating as a payments partner for merchants across 21 African countries.

made an offer to acquire the company for £2.2 billion ($2.76 billion) in June 2023. The High Court approved the transaction on 13 September 2024, allowing it to complete.

References

{{reflist Companies established in 1994 Companies based in Dubai Warburg Pincus companies