Collapsed German payments company Wirecard AG has reached agreements to sell its Brazilian business as well as assets in the U.K., kicking off the company's breakup in the wake of an accounting scandal that torpedoed the now-insolvent fintech giant.
An agreement was signed to sell Wirecard Brazil to a subsidiary of PagSeguro Digital Ltd., a Brazilian, U.S.-listed fintech, insolvency administrators said Friday. Brazilian regulators haven't yet given the deal the green light.
"It is particularly pleasing that the sale of Wirecard Brazil has been the first success with respect to the sale of assets, because the framework conditions of the Wirecard insolvency proceedings have been, and still are, very difficult," preliminary insolvency administrator Michael Jaffe said.
Moreover, an agreement in principle was reached with Railsbank Technology Limited. Under the agreement, the banking platform developer will buy some customer-relationship and other assets belonging to Wirecard's U.K. subsidiary Wirecard Card Solutions Ltd, whose operations include prepaid cards and electronic payment transactions.
The asset sales come in the wake of Wirecard's rapid downfall. The company, which filed for insolvency in June after saying that more than $2 billion missing from its balance sheet probably didn't exist, willbe kicked out of Germany's blue-chip DAX index as of Monday, roughly two years after joining the prestigious index.
Talks are open for the sale of other assets. The sale of the company's Wirecard North America Inc subsidiary "is also well advanced," Mr. Jaffe said. Final offers are expected shortly.
There are also negotiations with investors interested in the company's core acquiring and issuing business.
"There are several notable interested parties who have submitted indicative offers," Mr. Jaffe said.
