PayPoint is planning to resist a proposed takeover by rival utility top up company Alphyra, which had last week agreed to acquire a majority stake in the company.
Alphyra, which operates 13,000 Payzone terminals in the UK, announced it had agreed to buy BT’s and EDF Energy’s stakes in PayPoint, amounting to a 55% shareholding, for £80m.
Alphyra had also made an offer to PayPoint’s other shareholders to acquire the remaining shares for another
£80m. However, the PayPoint board of directors has not agreed to the deal.
A spokesman said: “It is business as usual and no deal can be done without board agreement.”
A source close to the deal said BT and EDF only had two out of the 10 seats on the board.
The other eight board directors would not allow Alphyra to “bulldoze this through” he claimed.
But sources at Alphyra claimed the company had made binding agreements with BT and EDF and the sale was going through.
Ireland-based Alphyra has more than 80,000 terminals in 10 European countries.
PayPoint collected more than £1.7bn in payments from 10,000 terminals in the UK in the 2002/2003 financial year.
It is on target to collect £2bn this year but it has not paid off set up costs, with £32.5m debt outstanding.
PayPoint collects payments on behalf of over 300 clients including BT, British Gas and Vodafone.