Eurowag acquires Grupa Inelo for €306 million as CFO steps down

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WAG Payment Solutions PLC on Tuesday said it has agreed to acquire Grupa Inelo SA as the company also announced its chief financial officer will step down after three years in the role.

WAG Payment Solutions, also known as Eurowag, processes toll and fuel payments for trucks around Europe.

The company agreed to acquire Inelo, a fleet management solutions and work time management provider in Poland and Slovenia, for up to €306 million.

The acquisition consists of about €225 million in cash and assumed debt of around €70 million, of which up to €58 million will be repaid upon completion. There also will be a deferred consideration, capped at €12.5 million, based on Inelo's earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation performance in the year to December 31 2022.

Eurowag says that the acquisition will build scale through the addition of around 87,000 connected trucks. It also enables the growth of the Eurowag network by roughly doubling the number of connected trucks from which the group collects data.

Eurowag expects Inelo to be double-digit earnings accretive in the first full year after completion of the acquisition.

Euorwag Founder & Chief Executive Officer Martin Vohanka said: "This strategically important transaction not only brings additional scale to Eurowag, it also takes us significantly closer to achieving our ambition of delivering a fully integrated, digital end-to-end platform for customers in the commercial road transportation sector."

Separately, Eurowag announced that CFO Magdalena Bartos will step down having served as the company's finance head for three years. She will remain in place for the next six months to support "an orderly transition".

The company said it has "clear succession processes in place" and will provide a further update on the recruitment of a new CFO when appropriate.

The announcements came as Eurowag reported net revenue of €135.6 million in the first nine months of 2022, up 23% from last year. This included €96.9 million of net revenue from payment solutions, up 20% from last year, and €38.7 million of net revenue from mobility solutions, up 32%.

Vohanka said these figures were "in line with management's expectations" and a "testament to the value our platform provides to the Commercial Road Transportation sector".

Looking forward, Eurowag said that following the Inelo acquisition, it expects to continue to deliver organic net revenue growth of between the high teens and low twenties per cent over the medium-term.

"The acquisition of Inelo significantly increases the revenue contribution to the group from the mobility solutions segment, which has lower operational gearing, but generates naturally more recurring revenues."

Shares in Eurowag were trading 2.3% higher at 83.30 pence each in London on Tuesday morning.

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