Private equity firm CVC is assessing a possible €9bn ($10.54bn) transaction for Italian payments company Nexi, the Financial Times reported citing sources.
According to the report, CVC is considering a new approach after previously looking at a takeover of Nexi on two occasions.
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The company’s share price has declined by about 65% over the past four years.
Nexi, whose biggest shareholder is buyout firm Hellman & Friedman, has faced pressure from lower fees across Europe’s payments sector, along with renegotiations of important contracts and competition from fintech companies.
One person familiar with CVC’s thinking told the FT that the firm would not move ahead with an offer for Nexi — valued at €9bn including €6bn of debt — without support from the Italian government.
“The issue is entirely political at this point,” they added.
Another person close to the matter said CVC’s review remains at an early stage and may not lead to a formal offer.
A person close to Hellman & Friedman told the FT that the investor is not in discussions with CVC or banks about a possible transaction, “but would respond to a bid should one emerge”.
Italy’s “golden power” rules, which apply to strategically important assets such as banking infrastructure, allow the government to stop a foreign takeover of Nexi.
People familiar with the matter said the proposal being examined would separate Nexi’s digital banking solutions unit and place it with an Italian state-backed investor such as Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (CDP).
They said the aim of carving out the digital banking business, the smallest of Nexi’s three operating divisions, would be to reduce the risk of Rome using its veto powers.
However, the same people said CDP, Italy’s state fund and Nexi’s second-largest shareholder, does not appear to back taking the payments group private.
Last year, Nexi turned down a €1bn offer from US private equity firm TPG for its digital banking division.
The group’s other two businesses are merchant solutions, which offers payment services to in-store and online merchants, and issuing solutions, which works with financial institutions to issue payment cards. Merchant solutions generated almost 60% of Nexi’s €3.6bn revenue in 2025.
Under the plan being considered by CVC, Nexi would be repositioned as a software-focused company, the people said.
Italian officials told the FT that their priority was to reorganise Nexi after a period of rapid expansion — including the 2020 acquisitions of Italian payments providers Sia and Nets — led to a fall in the company’s share price and weakened investor confidence in what had previously been viewed as a cash-generative model.
