Global Payments shares rise on reports of Elliott stake following Worldpay deal
Citing sources familiar with the matter, media reports said Elliott's stake in Atlanta-based Global Payments was "sizable." However, Reuters added that its exact size -- along with what exactly Elliott hopes to change about the company -- remained unclear.
The Financial Times was the first to report the story.
Elliott's reported move comes less than three months after Global Payments paid $24.3 billion in a deal to purchase Worldpay from FIS and private equity firm GTCR. Global Payments' card processing and account services division was sold to FIS as part of the transaction, which is anticipated to close in the first half of 2026.
Analysts widely took issue with the deal, noting that Global Payments executives had previously outlined plans to focus on divesting assets and returning cash to shareholders. Crucially, the three-way deal does not require a shareholder vote, meaning that Elliott will be unable to block it.
Global Payments' stock price has slid by more than 30% so far this year, although it has edged up by a little over 1% in the last one-month period.
Analysts at Jefferies said that while the stock is "objectively cheap," trading at less than six times forward earnings estimates, they do not "see an obvious activist playbook" behind Elliott's stake.
Elliott's prior involvement in payments group PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL) was focused on cost-cutting and improved capital allocation, but balance sheet constraints and elevated margins mean that neither of these are "potential levers" the activist investor could use with Global Payments, the analysts argued.
"We struggle to see what could be done through the traditional activist lens," they said.
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