Euronet Worldwide Acquires XE

(RTTNews) - Euronet Worldwide Inc (EEFT), an electronic payments company, on Monday said it has acquired XE, a provider of digital foreign exchange information.

Euronet said it will use about $60 million from its revolving credit agreement together with about 640,000 Euronet shares and an undisclosed amount of cash to complete the deal.

The deal provides Euronet a large Internet presence and user base attuned to foreign currency, while Euronet offers XE breadth and depth in foreign currency products, a strong balance sheet and geographic expansion opportunities.

According to Euronet, XE has established itself as the world's leading provider of currency related data, fulfilling more than 2.9 billion annual requests.

XE's XE.com and x-rates.com websites draw more than 1.6 billion total page views from more than 200 million unique visitors per year, while its mobile app has achieved more than 35 million downloads and three billion rate requests since it was launched in 2009.

XE earns revenue from two services tied to currency exchange rates: currency data and international payments.

XE's foreign currency payments are currently processed through a vendor, and Euronet expects XE's annual revenue of about $10 million to improve to about $22 million once the payments processing is converted to Euronet's platform at HiFX.

Euronet said XE will be consolidated into its money transfer segment and the company expects the impact of this acquisition on consolidated cash earnings per share will be neutral in the first full year of combined operations.