Euronet Worldwide Acquires XE, the World’s Trusted Currency Authority 

XE Brings Industry Leading Online Presence and Digital Expertise to Euronet’s Money Transfer Business

Euronet Worldwide, Inc. (NASDAQ:EEFT), a leading electronic payments provider, announced it has acquired XE, a global leader in digital foreign exchange information.

XE has established itself as the world’s leading provider of currency related data, fulfilling more than 2.9 billion annual requests. XE’s XE.com and x-rates.com websites draw more than 1.6 billion total page views from more than 200 million unique visitors per year, while its mobile app has achieved more than 35 million downloads and three billion rate requests since it was launched in 2009. These user statistics consistently rank XE in the top 500 global websites, comparable to leading brands such as Reuters, Samsung and the Wall Street Journal according to Alexa.com, an analytics website. Additionally, XE ranks as one of the top five business news sites globally, sharing recognition with respected brands such as Bloomberg and The Wall Street Journal, according to similarweb.com, a digital measurement company.

XE earns revenue from two services tied to currency exchange rates: currency data and international payments; the company earns subscription-based fees for delivering global currency exchange rate data through its proprietary currency data API and it earns transaction-based revenue from XE Trade Money Transfers, its online international payments service made available to businesses and consumers through an outsourced service contract. And, because the XE.com website is trusted and highly visited, XE attracts advertisers who place ads on the site.

Euronet’s money transfer division has grown operating income at a 25% compounded annualized rate since Ria was purchased in 2007. Through investments in Ria Digital and the May 2014 acquisition of HiFX, Euronet has consistently enhanced its robust traditional, cash-based money remittance business with a high-growth, Internet-based, international remittance and payments product suite targeted at consumers and small-to-medium sized businesses. The acquisition of XE provides Euronet an incredibly large Internet presence and user base attuned to foreign currency, while Euronet offers XE breadth and depth in foreign currency products, a strong balance sheet and geographic expansion opportunities.

“Euronet’s vision is to become the global leader in digital money transfer and XE is one more milestone towards that goal,” said Michael J. Brown, Euronet’s Chairman and CEO. “Building a brand and generating high quality traffic to your digital properties require some of the heaviest investment when constructing a digital business. XE has made that investment and in doing so, has become a top 500 global website and the world’s top currency site, serving more than 200 million unique visitors annually – 49% of which have a payment need according to a recent poll of XE users. This strong brand presence speaks to the quality and potential of this asset. Ria and HiFX bring XE many of the products and capabilities that the XE team and their customers need, while XE brings Euronet the exposure and high quality traffic that would have taken us a decade to build. With almost half of XE’s visitors needing to make an international payment, you can really see why we are so excited about the combined opportunity and look forward to becoming the leading global digital international payments provider.”

“XE has found a home,” said Steven Dengler, XE co-founder and CEO. “XE’s online presence and brand, combined with Euronet’s product and geographic capabilities, have the potential to propel XE’s growth well beyond anything we might have achieved on our own. We are pleased to combine the knowledge and capabilities of our leadership team and employees with that of Ria and HiFX in order to achieve Euronet’s strategic goals.”

Euronet will use approximately $60 million from its revolving credit agreement together with approximately 640,000 Euronet shares and an undisclosed amount of cash to complete the acquisition. XE’s foreign currency payments are currently processed through a vendor, and Euronet expects XE’s annual revenue of approximately $10 million to improve to approximately $22 million once the payments processing is converted to Euronet’s platform at HiFX. XE will be consolidated into Euronet’s money transfer segment and the Company expects the impact of this acquisition on consolidated cash earnings per share will be neutral in the first full year of combined operations.

Source: Euronet Worldwide 

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