Dive Brief:

• Global Payments plans to sell its payroll software services business to Grand Rapids, Michigan-based Acrisure for $1.1 billion, the company said in a press release Wednesday. As part of the transaction, the companies also entered a commercial agreement under which Global Payments will continue to offer the human resources and payroll software services to its merchant clients, the release said.
• In a separate release Wednesday, Acrisure noted the unit is currently known as Heartland Payroll Solutions, but will be rebranded after the closing. The companies said they expect the deal to close in the second half of this year.
• “This transaction further sharpens our strategic focus and allows us to amplify investment in the markets and solutions where we are most differentiated, while also positioning the payroll business to benefit from greater scale and investment moving forward,” Global Payments CEO Cameron Bready said in the release.

Dive Insight:

Atlanta-based Global Payment plans to sell off the payroll and human resources business as it seeks to narrow its focus on providing payments services to merchants and to streamline its operations around that purpose. The company earlier this year also divested its issuer business in a $13.5 billion sale to Fidelity National Information Services and last year sold its healthcare software Advanced MD unit to an investment firm for $1.1 billion.

By contrast, Acrisure said the acquisition will allow it to keep diversifying the suite of software services it offers to its approximately 50,000 small and mid-sized business clients. The purchase will let it expand the human resource and payroll services it currently offers, and add to its other insurance, reinsurance and cybersecurity services.

Acrisure, which recently raised $2.1 billion in a funding round that valued the company at $32 billion, will hire a Global Payments executive as part of the deal. The company said Vince Lombardo, the North America president for Global Payments’ merchant solutions business, will become CEO of the Heartland Payroll business.

The Heartland unit has about 1,000 employees, a spokesperson for Acrisure said in a statement via email. Acrisure plans to expand the unit’s workforce as the business grows, according to the statement. “All Heartland Payroll teams and employees currently dedicated to the payroll business will be given the opportunity to work at Acrisure,” the spokesperson added.

Analysts who follow Global Payments noted that the sale falls in line with the company’s plan to divest businesses that generate up to $600 million annually.

While analysts for the investment firm Robert W. Baird & Co. estimated the Heartland unit generated between $125 million and $145 million in annual revenue, or about 1.5% of Global Payments’ overall annual income, analysts for at the firm TD Cowen estimated a higher level, estimating the unit’s revenue in the range of $250 million to $300 million.