{"id":4369,"date":"2019-01-09T21:52:21","date_gmt":"2019-01-09T21:52:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.paymentfacilitator.com\/?p=4369"},"modified":"2022-02-24T22:18:13","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T22:18:13","slug":"off-to-an-acquisitive-start-mindbody-paya-classpass","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/archive\/off-to-an-acquisitive-start-mindbody-paya-classpass\/","title":{"rendered":"Off to an Acquisitive Start: MINDBODY, Paya, ClassPass"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Despite significant M&amp;A movement within the payments industry over the past couple of years, the activity doesn\u2019t appear to be over. In fact, at the end of last year, Rick Oglesby, president of AZ Payments Group, <\/strong><strong>predicted<\/strong><strong> that acquisition would pick up in 2019 \u2013 and so far, the year is not disappointing.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">First up, MINDBODY. Last fall Dan Chandre, vice president of\nstrategic development for the company, which caters to the boutique health,\nfitness and beauty industry, spoke\nto an audience at PF WORLD 2018. He told them that the changing\nrelationship between software vendors and payments was enabling businesses like\nhis to focus on the merchant experience. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe believe that we drive a lot of the value to the merchant,\nand we believe there are a lot of partners \u2026 that understand that. So, we want\nto put out there what we want to do as a business, and we\u2019re going to see who\nwants to run along with us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Apparently, they found one such runner in investment firm Vista\nPartners. The firm <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mindbodyonline.com\/company\/press\/mindbody-enters-into-definitive-agreement-to-be-acquired-by-vista-equity-partners-for\">plans\nto acquire<\/a> MINDBODY at a value of $1.9 billion, the company said in\nDecember. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cMINDBODY\u2019s purpose is to help people lead healthier,\nhappier lives by connecting the world to fitness, beauty and wellness,\u201d Rick\nStollmeyer, the company\u2019s co-founder and CEO, said in a press release. \u201cWe are\nthrilled to provide immediate liquidity to our shareholders at a significant\npremium to market prices and to leverage Vista\u2019s resources and deep expertise\nto accelerate our growth while achieving that purpose more effectively than\never before.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The transaction is expected to close during the first quarter\nof 2019. This follows MINDBODY\u2019s own acquisition\nof Booker Software last March. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Next, there\u2019s Paya. Last November, payments provider Paya acquired\nStewardship Technologies in a bid to boost its integrated payments capabilities\nand access to faith-based organizations, which it saw as an underserved market.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">This week, just two months later, Paya announced further plans\nto build out its capabilities and expand its verticals by <a href=\"https:\/\/paya.com\/newsroom\/FBSAcquisition\">acquiring<\/a> First Billing\nServices (FBS). FBS provides electronic bill payment and presentment services\nfor utilities and municipal governments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThe deep expertise, technology and proven success that the\nFBS team has achieved with utilities and governments complements the work Paya\nhas already completed to enable the most flexible, vertically tailored and\nintegrated commerce solutions,\u201d Jeff Hack, CEO of Paya, said in a release.\n\u201cWe\u2019re delighted to welcome our FBS colleagues and support FBS\u2019s growth plans\nwhile also making these capabilities available to all Paya partners.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Paya is a private equity-backed firm that was acquired by\nGTCR in 2017.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And finally, U.S.-based fitness aggregator ClassPass <a href=\"https:\/\/classpass.com\/press-room\/newsroom\/classpass-acquisition-of-guavapass\/\">announced<\/a>\nearlier this week that it is planning to expand its international footprint by\nacquiring GuavaPass, which provides a fitness membership network across the\nMiddle East and Asia. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to a press release, the deal will give ClassPass\noperations in 11 cities: Abu Dhabi, Bangkok, Beijing, Dubai, Hong Kong,\nJakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Mumbai, Shanghai and Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWe\u2019re thrilled to acquire GuavaPass\u2019 assets and select\ntalent and continue building the biggest fitness membership for our customers,\nand the largest global network for our partners. This transaction will only\naccelerate our robust growth trajectory as we continue expanding throughout\nAsia and the Middle East,\u201d ClassPass CEO Fritz Lanman said in the release. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cWhile acquiring competition is not part of our growth\nstrategy, it\u2019s clear that GuavaPass\u2019 founders and team are committed to a\ncommon mission and we look forward to welcoming them to ClassPass as we\ncontinue global expansion.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Despite significant M&#038;A movement within the payments industry over the past couple of years, the activity doesn\u2019t appear to be over. In fact, at the end of last year, Rick Oglesby, president of AZ Payments Group, predicted that acquisition would pick up in 2019 \u2013 and so far, the year is not disappointing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_caption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_nocaption":"","_FSMCFIC_featured_image_hide":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1015],"tags":[70,180,533,628,687,955],"class_list":["post-4369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-az-payments","tag-classpass","tag-mindbody","tag-paya","tag-pfworld2018","tag-vista-partners"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4369"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8324,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4369\/revisions\/8324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/infinicept.com\/payment-facilitator\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}