The owners of the digital payment and information services company Nets are secretly planning to sell it, reports financial daily Børsen.
The newspaper concludes that the sale of Nets, which operates the national debit card system Dankort and the secure digital login facility used by banks and public services, NemID, could be one of the largest ever domestic sales reaching a price of 10 billion kroner.
Three banks, Nordea, Danske Bank and DnB Bank each own between 16 and 20 percent of Nets. The central bank, Nationalbanken, also owns a share, while smaller banks Jyske Bank and Sydbank own the remainder.
“The owners feel that the time is right to sell Nets and the process has been started,” an unidentified source told Børsen, adding that J.P. Morgan would be responsible for the sale. “They have hired an advisor and they expect the sale to take place in the autumn.”
Børsen’s sources suggest Nets’s ownership structure is becoming increasingly out-dated as payment forms become more digital and international.
The same source said that American equity funds could be among the interested buyers of the financial infrastructure. Visa and Mastercard have also been identified as interested buyers.
Nets is currently Europe’s second largest independent digital payment processor in Europe, turning over six billion kroner and earning over 700 million kroner last year.
