经济学人:支付:收购者被收购(1)

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　　Payments: Acquirer acquired 支付：收购者被收购

　　An American payments firm goes online and buys British. 一家美国支付公司在线购买英国货。

　　A Bidding war was briefly¹ but eagerly anticipated. In the end, not a shot was fired. 一场短暂而急切参与的收购战，最后，没响一枪就结束了。

　　On July 4th the share price of Worldpay, a British payments processor,  7月4日，英国一家支付运营公司WorldPay，

　　leapt by 28% after the company said it had received preliminary approaches from JPMorgan Chase, America's biggest bank, and Vantiv, an American payments firm. 在声明已从美国最大的银行摩根大通和一家支付公司Vantiv获得了初步的方案后，其股票价格猛涨了28%。

　　The next day Worldpay said it had accepted a cash-and-shares bid from Vantiv, worth 7.7bn pounds ($10bn) , giving its shareholders² 41% of the combined group. 第二天，WorldPay公司表示已经接受了Vantiv公司的现金和股票收购，价值为7.7bn 英镑（100亿美元），给予其股东联合团队价值的41%。

　　JPMorgan Chase, sniffily explaining that it had considered a bid after an “invitation” from Worldpay, which is a client, declined to proceed. 摩根大通，不屑一顾地解释道他们考虑投标是因为他们的客户------Worldpay公司的“邀请”，现已经拒绝继续了。

　　Under Britain's takeover code that refusal rules out a counter bid for six months. 根据英国的收购法规，摩根大通的拒绝限制了六个月的还价。

　　The shares slipped back by nearly 9%. WorldPay公司的股票下跌了近9%。

　　Vantiv and Worldpay are “merchant acquirers” : companies that have contracts with sellers of goods and services,  Vantiv和WorldPay都是“商户”：与提供产品和服务的卖方有着合同的公司，

　　and licences from credit- and debit-card companies, to accept and process card payments. 有着信用和借记卡许可证的公司，接受和处理信用卡支付。

　　They also provide insurance—for example, refunding³ disappointed holidaymakers when an airline goes bust⁴. 他们也提供保险-----比如一家航空公司破产了，他们要赔偿失望的度假者。

　　Until a few years ago, explains Ali Farid Khwaja of Autonomous⁵, an investment-research firm, acquirers in both America and Europe had to have banking⁶ licences. 直到几年前，自治的Ali Farid Khwaja解释道，一家投资研究公司，要求在美国和欧洲的收购者都必须拥有营业执照。

　　As a consequence, banks still feature in lists of leading acquirers. 因此，银行仍在领先的收购方名单上。

　　According to the Nilson Report, a newsletter, they accounted for three of America's top seven last year: JPMorgan Chase ranked first, with Vantiv second. 根据一个时事通讯《尼尔森报告》，他们占据了美国去年前七名中的三名。摩根大通排名第一，Vantiv紧随其后。

　　Both Vantiv and Worldpay, indeed, emerged from banks. 事实上，Vantiv 和 Worldpay都来自银行。

　　Vantiv was spun⁷ off in 2009 by Fifth Third, an Ohio-based lender which still owns 17.9%. Vantiv在2009年被总部在俄亥俄州的五三银行拆分后，仍然占据17.9%的股份。

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